Democrats on Capitol Hill and across the country quickly threw their support behind Vice President Harris’ presidential candidacy this week, racing against the clock to unite behind a new candidate following President Biden’s sudden withdrawal from the race.
The rapid enthusiasm surrounding the vice president — both in the form of endorsements and big fundraisers — underscores the feeling among many Democrats that Harris is Biden’s strongest replacement at this point in the race.
Here’s why Democrats rallied so quickly around the vice president.
Her name recognition
As Biden’s vice president, Harris already has some built-in advantages, including the fact that most Americans already know who she is. Although Harris has only been campaigning for a few months, her experience in the White House gives her a credibility that makes her a “natural choice,” political strategists said.
“Vice President Harris has really stepped up on the national and international stage over the last three and a half years in a really unique way,” Joel Goldstein, a leading vice presidential scholar, told The Hill.
Harris can praise the administration’s accomplishments and present her record with compelling evidence while bringing a new face to the top of the ticket.
“One of the roles she adopted was as a spokesperson for issues and programs that are important to Democratic voters or government supporters,” Goldstein said.
“She was part of a ticket for which 14 million voters have already voted, so she is known to voters,” added political strategist Basil Smikle.
Harris has received increasing national attention in recent weeks after Biden’s disastrous debate performance fueled talk of replacements for the ticket, Goldstein noted.
Harris was also no stranger to politics before the White House, serving as a senator from California from 2017 to 2021 and launching a presidential campaign in 2020.
Access to Biden’s fundraising apparatus and campaign
With less than four months until the election, likely access to Biden’s campaign’s remaining millions of dollars could prove vital to Harris’ accelerated candidacy. Other Democratic presidential candidates would essentially need to start from scratch in a fraction of the time.
Several Democratic donors have already told The Hill that Harris is the most perfect choice, just over 100 days before the election.
“She is already on the ticket. She was tested. And we really don’t have the luxury of time here,” one donor told The Hill. “We’re heading into August, and ideally this process would have happened months ago, so we’re not building the plane as we fly it.”
Many campaign finance lawyers say Biden’s war chest is due precisely to Harris because she was listed as a candidate alongside the president in FEC documentation.
Black voters are a core constituency
Black voters are a crucial electoral coalition and one of the most loyal bases of the Democratic Party.
Harris presents an opportunity for Democrats to reenergize and engage with this base, which has expressed growing frustrations with the direction of the country. In particular, Biden has seen an erosion of support among black men.
Smikle argued that there is “renewed interest” for Harris in the party.
“As someone of Jamaican and South Asian descent, who has really rooted himself in the black community here, I think I’ve already energized a lot of voters,” he said.
In a show of support, more than 40,000 Black women participated in a virtual rally on Sunday organized by the group #WinWithBlackWomen and raised more than $1.5 million for Harris’ campaign within hours of Biden’s withdrawal. Meanwhile, Alpha PAC, a black, male-led organization, endorsed Harris on Monday.
Your youth
At 59, Harris is 22 years younger than Biden, who at 81 is the oldest sitting US president and faces growing concerns about his mental fitness.
Harris’ age could boost the youth vote, political strategists told The Hill, easing alarm about Gen Z, in particular, feeling apathetic about the 2024 race.
Voters of Tomorrow (VOT), a left-leaning organization focused on young American voters, endorsed Harris less than an hour after Biden dropped out, calling her “one of Gen Z’s fiercest champions.”
Jessica Siles, VOT’s deputy press secretary, told The Hill that many young voters can identify with the vice president.
“I think a lot of young people and people in the United States can see themselves in Vice President Kamala Harris. I think she is a woman of many innovations and has lived a trailblazing career and I think she is representation that we haven’t always had,” Siles said, adding that Harris’ priorities “align” with young voters.
Harris’s resonance with young people is already being seen on social media, through viral internet memes, several of which relate to an anecdote she told about her mother and a coconut tree last year.
Harris and Democrats can now nominate former President Trump, 78, as the oldest candidate and will ease young voters’ concerns about having a leader who is too old, Smikle told The Hill.
Your experience as a promoter
Democrats and Harris are leveraging her experience as a former prosecutor, contrasting her role in the law with that of Trump, who was convicted of 34 criminal charges in a secret case earlier this year and faces several other criminal and civil court battles.
Meeting with campaign staff on Monday, Harris, a former California attorney general, noted that she has “faced perpetrators of all types” and “knows Donald Trump’s type.”
Several Democratic lawmakers who supported Harris used the “prosecutor versus criminal” argument in supporting the vice president.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
