With Kamala Harris, Democrats would bet against US history of sexism, racism
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Vice-President Kamala Harris, if promoted to the top ticket, will barely have three months to campaign and unite Democrats.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON – The Democratic party will be taking a historic gamble if it turns to Vice-President Kamala Harris to become its presidential candidate, betting that a Black woman can overcome racism, sexism and her own missteps as a politician to defeat Republican Donald Trump.
In more than two centuries of democracy, American voters have elected only one Black president and never a woman, a record that makes even some Black voters wonder if Ms Harris can crash through the hardest ceiling in US politics.
“Will her race and gender be an issue? Absolutely,” said Ms LaTosha Brown, a political strategist and co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Fund.
Ms Harris would face other big challenges: If promoted to the top of the ticket, she would have barely three months to campaign and unite the party and donors behind her.
Yet, many Democrats are excited about her chances.
Some three dozen Democratic lawmakers
Many fear Trump and the Republicans could not only take the White House, but both houses of Congress.
Mr Biden said again on July 19 that he would not step aside and would resume campaigning after he recovers from Covid-19
Ms Harris, 59, is two decades younger than Trump and a leader in the party on abortion rights, an issue that resonates with younger voters and Democrats’ progressive base.
Proponents argue she would energise those voters, consolidate Black support, and bring sharp debating skills to prosecute the political case against the former president.
Her candidacy would offer a contrast with Trump and his vice-presidential running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, the two white men on the Republican ticket, Ms Brown said.
“That to me is reflective of America’s past. She is reflective of America’s now and future,” she said.
But despite earning praise in the last few weeks for her strong defence of Mr Biden, some Democrats remain concerned about Ms Harris’ shaky first two years in office, short-lived campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination, and – perhaps most of all – the weight of a long history of racial and gender discrimination in the United States.
In a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, Ms Harris and Trump were tied with 44 per cent support each in a July 15-16 Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted immediately after the assassination attempt against Trump.
Trump led Mr Biden 43 per cent to 41 per cent in that same poll, though the 2 percentage point difference was within the poll’s 3 percentage point margin of error.
Ms Harris’ approval ratings, while low, are a tick higher than Mr Biden’s.
According to polling outfit Five Thirty Eight, 38.6 per cent of Americans approve of Ms Harris while 50.4 per cent disapprove. Mr Biden has 38.5 per cent approval and 56.2 per cent disapproval.
‘No safe option’
“If you think that there is consensus among the people who want Joe Biden to leave that they will support Kamala – Vice-President Harris – you would be mistaken,” Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, a Biden supporter, said on Instagram. “There’s no safe option.”
The US elected Mr Barack Obama – the first and only Black president – in 2008. The only woman to head a presidential ticket of a major party, Mrs Hillary Clinton, lost to Trump in 2016.
Supporters of Ms Harris, the first woman and first Black and South Asian person to serve as vice-president, argue she has already weathered unfair attacks related to her race and gender and is prepared for more.
“America has a history of racism, sexism, so I’m sure that will factor into this conversation, factor into her campaign,” said Mr Jamal Simmons, a former Harris aide.
But he said there is a flip side: Black voters could be galvanised if Ms Harris is put at the top of the ticket, and women, including some who regret not voting for Mrs Clinton in 2016, would back her as well.
“It’s also true that she will benefit from her race and her gender, that many African Americans may rally to her candidacy,” he said.
Ms Harris benefits from greater name recognition than the other Democratic leaders who have been floated as potential presidential candidates, he said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer are among those talked about in Democratic circles as possible replacements.
“While she has flaws and faults like everyone, we know those flaws and faults, so you can build a campaign with clarity. Any other candidates are complete unknowns,” Mr Simmons said.
One former Democratic lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he thought Ms Harris was a bigger risk because of her record than her race.
Ms Harris was plagued by staff turnover at the beginning of her vice-presidency and showed little progress on her portfolios of protecting voting rights and stemming migration from Central America.
“I think the race thing is just a compounding factor or an exacerbating factor,” the former lawmaker said. “Any of it’s going to be a gamble, but I like the odds with another candidate, even if that means Kamala at the top of the ticket.”
Mr Barack Obama has had to wrestle with slurs concerning his race as he was vying to become the US’ first Black president.
PHOTO: AFP
Trump has used racist and sexist language, explicitly and in code. In 2020, he said he “heard” Ms Harris, a US citizen born in California, did not qualify to be a candidate for vice-president
At a rally in Michigan on July 20, Trump piled on Ms Harris for the way she laughs.
“I call her Laughing Kamala,” Trump said. “You ever watch her laugh? She’s crazy.”
Trump’s campaign said Democrats were deploying “classic disinformation” about his language and noted Ms Harris’ dispute with Mr Biden in a 2019 debate about school busing and her criticism of Mr Biden for working with segregationists in the Senate.
“In contrast, President Trump is polling at record-high levels with African Americans,” Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller said in a statement.
Trump made false “birtherism” claims
Polling at the time showed a quarter of all Americans - and 45 per cent of Republicans - believed Mr Obama had not been born in the country.
“You’ve got birtherism 2.0,” said Mr Cliff Albright, co-founder and CEO of Black Voters Matter Fund, an Atlanta-based non-profit, referring to Ms Harris.
Ms Nadia Brown, director of the women’s and gender studies programme at Georgetown University, said despite the rise of Black political leaders, there remains a notable reluctance to accept women in key leadership roles.
“Patriarchy is a hell of a drug,” Ms Brown said. “With racism, we know it, we can call it out. The mood that we’re not seeing as articulately expressed is a real reticence to have a Black woman, in particular, as a leader.”
Ms Harris’ standing in the party has improved with her aggressive advocacy for reproductive rights after the Supreme Court in 2022 struck down Roe v Wade, which protected women’s right to abortion.
Mr Biden credited her with helping to prevent a “red wave” of Republican victories in that year’s midterm elections, and Ms Harris has crisscrossed the country as a top campaign spokesperson on abortion rights.
Ms Harris could also inherit Mr Biden’s strong support among Black voters, who helped propel him to the 2020 Democratic nomination.
But Black women have not entirely given up on Mr Biden.
Ms Donna Brazile, a political strategist and former chair of the Democratic National Committee, said on July 20 she joined 1,400 Black women in a letter of support for a Biden-Harris ticket and in condemnation of disunity within the party.
And if the party ends up coalescing around Ms Harris, she could receive some of the blame from voters who say Democratic leaders covered up his frailties.
“I’m kind of done with the Democrats. So many knew about Biden’s condition and hid it. Kamala was part of that,” said Ms Gina Gannon, 65, a retiree in the battleground state of Georgia, who voted for Trump in 2016 and Mr Biden in 2020. REUTERS
