Democrats in Michigan rejoiced last week after presidential nominee Joe Biden revealed Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate. But so did many Republicans, immediately jumping on Harris’s record and her progressive policies and hoping to cast her as a radical California liberal who doesn’t understand Michigan values and issues.
The pressure was so intense for Biden to pick not only a woman but a black woman, that it wasn’t exactly a surprise when he selected Harris, whose father is from Jamaica and whose mother is from India.
Black women, including some from Michigan, made a public call to Biden demanding he choose a black woman, especially after it became public that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat and vice presidential contender, had met with Biden earlier this month. They found Whitmer’s whiteness intolerable.
Harris, 55, does bring some vitality and diversity to the ticket, and that is something Democrats hope will drive voter turnout this fall.
Michigan-based Democratic strategist Jill Alper said Harris’s status as the first black woman and Asian American on a major party’s presidential ticket, along with her family’s immigrant story, has garnered a lot of enthusiasm that can be seen in campaign donations following the announcement. “It seems to have provided a bump,” Alper said.
Democrats need to inspire more enthusiasm for this ticket then there was in 2016. Despite Hillary Clinton’s desire and expectation that she’d be the first female president, she was disliked by voters across the aisle. And she, along with running mate Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, didn’t do enough to drive the black vote in cities such as Detroit, which is nearly 80% African American.
The black voter-turnout rate in a United States presidential election fell for the first time in 20 years in 2016 to 59.6%, down from 66.6% in 2012, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
Some political strategists I’ve spoken to believe that Harris could help drive voter turnout in November, in addition to Biden’s role as former vice president to the first black president.
Democrats are also angling for the Michigan suburban vote. In 2016, 50% of white women in Michigan helped elect President Trump. But the 2018 midterms showed a big swing among these voters away from Republicans.
Given that Trump won Michigan by less than 11,000 votes, the loss of that support could make all the difference.
Republicans are seeking to win back those voters by painting Harris as a progressive whose environmental policies could hamper Michigan’s manufacturing base, and they are also drawing attention to her far-left record in the Senate.
Michigan-based GOP strategist Stu Sandler said Harris’s liberal ideology and “coastal elite” status could be a turnoff to some voters in the state. And he said there’s a lot more attention on Harris than is typical for a vice presidential candidate, given Biden would be 78 when taking office. Plus, if elected, he’s only expected to be a one-term president.
“People are scrutinizing her as a potential president,” he said.
While Democrats are much more driven by identity politics, that only goes so far with conservatives, who vote as a rule based on their interests, such as the economy.
Linda Lee Tarver, a Michigan consultant and national advisory board member of Black Voices for Trump, said it’s Harris’s standing on the issues that she cares about, such as education, healthcare, religious liberty, and abortion, not her race. “Being a woman of color is not sufficient for me,” she said.
According to RealClearPolitics poll averages, Biden is currently leading Trump in Michigan by nearly 7 percentage points. Republicans have their work cut out for them to make a case for why Trump deserves another four years and why a Biden-Harris ticket would be bad for Michigan.
Ingrid Jacques is the deputy editorial page editor and a columnist at the Detroit News.
