Sen. Kamala Harris has been deployed on the campaign trail to compensate for the older, more centrist head of the Democratic ticket, Joe Biden.
Harris, the 2020 Democratic vice presidential nominee, made her first interstate swing to Wisconsin over the Labor Day long weekend, adding in-person stops to her already packed schedule of virtual events, fundraisers, and TV interviews.
Unlike her predecessors and opposition, Harris features heavily in advertising for Biden, the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, including a 60-second racial justice spot called “We’re Listening.” The California senator is also showcased in a $1 million outside investment of ads and mailers by BlackPAC, a political action committee focused on black political participation.
When Biden, the two-term vice president, named Harris as his understudy in August, she was set to model her role on Vice President Mike Pence’s in President Trump’s reelection bid, traveling the country more widely than the top of the ticket.
Yet after Biden, unburdened by the demands of the White House, promised to build more trips into his public itinerary post-Labor Day, parallels will now be drawn between not only Trump but Harris.
For Democratic strategist Mike Nellis, a senior adviser to Harris during the primary, Biden’s 77 years of age was an issue, explaining Delaware’s 36-year senator’s reliance on the six-year California state attorney general, 55, particularly for minority outreach.
“It makes sense for the campaign to put Kamala out there to ease those concerns as well as excite progressives and younger voters skeptical about Biden’s candidacy,” Nellis told the Washington Examiner.
Biden’s popularity has ticked up since he announced Harris as his No. 2 on Aug. 11, according to Nellis.
YouGov polls from Aug. 6-8 and Sep. 6-8 do show a modest increase in Biden’s favorability-unfavorability ratings among adult respondents, while enthusiasm has remained steady.
Nellis cited fundraising as another metric of support for Harris as the Democratic No. 2.
“Online fundraising skyrocketed in the days after her selection as the VP nominee — culminating in a historic month for the Biden campaign,” he said.
Biden’s team brought in $10.8 million through ActBlue within four hours of Harris’s unveiling, its biggest grassroots haul at the time.
Though Cesar Conda, a Republican strategist who staffed former Vice President Dick Cheney, wasn’t as sure of Harris’s prowess on the stump.
“Biden has a big problem: He isn’t exciting the liberal Democratic base,” he said. “This is going to be a turnout election, and they think Harris will excite the base. But her sorry performance in the Democratic primary proves that it probably won’t work.”
Although vice presidential picks have helped their party win their home states, Conda maintained that generally “voters don’t vote for the second name on the ticket.”
“The other danger of shining the spotlight on Harris is that her extreme liberal positions that play well in California are a liability in swing states like Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania,” he said.
Victor Dutchuk disagreed. The past chairman of Iowa’s West Des Moines Democrats said Harris had early momentum in his Midwest state, in part, because she was a trailblazer as a female White House hopeful of Jamaican and Indian descent. He blamed her struggles to gain further traction last summer to sexism and racism too, factors mitigated by Biden in the general election.
Rather than worrying that Harris’ liberal beliefs could alienate centrist voters, Dutchuk said Harris’s personable retail politics style could expand Biden’s coalition simultaneously as being a more disciplined messenger for his policies.
“She’s more measured in what she says than Vice President Biden probably is,” he said, before contrasting him to Trump.
He added, “Everybody gaffes once in a while, but Biden’s are so minimal compared to what Trump’s have been. I mean, let’s face it: Trump doesn’t really have gaffes, he has lies and misdirections.”
An early Harris endorser, Dutchuk likened Biden’s strategy regarding the seven-year San Francisco district attorney to an advertising push where marketers want to promote a novel product. Yet he was adamant the heir apparent wouldn’t cast a shadow over the standard-bearer.
“Biden is such an established name,” he said. “Although Kamala may show more energy and bring in more, newer voters, she’s not going to outshine the vice president because it’s his ideas, his agenda, and his philosophy that’s been implemented.”
Biden was in Michigan Wednesday to talk about the economy with the United Auto Workers labor union in Warren and steelworkers in Detroit. The trip is his fourth to the Midwest in 10 days, though his team didn’t organize any events for Tuesday, the day after Labor Day and the unofficial launch of the fall fight.
