WRITING HERE LAST time, I ventured that the attempt on Donald Trump’s life by a horribly misguided young man could actually work to President Joe Biden’s political benefit.
My supposition was that the media glare would go off the topic of his age and capacity to serve four more years in the White House. Consequently, the cries from within his own party that he should stand aside might cease. Sadly for the incumbent, that’s not how it transpired.
Instead, the agitation for President Biden to exit continued apace. And it seems that he finally faced reality. The polling data was bad and worsening daily. Donors were signalling strongly that there would be no further infusions of cash unless and until he went. Congressional Democrats were growing apprehensive about their own seats with the beleaguered 81-year-old at the top of the ticket, and the party faithful around the country feared a wipeout of historic proportions on 5 November.
Before moving on to where we are now, it needs to be said that the centrality of the role of former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in this heave cannot be overestimated. It was pretty apparent that she was choreographing announcements from prominent Democrats to the effect that, despite their respect and admiration for the man, it was time for Joe Biden to throw in the towel.
It has also been reported that Pelosi, with whom Biden is allegedly furious, was preparing to play hardball on this front if the president didn’t pull the plug himself.
While there is, at a minimum, one other Democrat, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who is arguably more electable than her, the party has coalesced swiftly around the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, to replace her boss. In so doing, they have taken the most expedient route. She is a part of an existing campaign apparatus; the funds secured already transfer seamlessly to her; and passing over a woman of colour could have engendered costly resentment among crucial constituencies.
Let’s consider her strengths and weaknesses.
As for the pluses, to amplify the obvious, she is not a faltering Joe Biden. Moreover, she is relatively young and energetic and is someone with an impressive track record of accomplishment – a successful district attorney and attorney general in California, a US Senator and the first female vice president. She has hugely boosted previously downcast activists, as reflected by the enormous sum of money that has poured in this week to her coffers and expressions of willingness to aid the effort to vanquish Trump.
The contrast with her foe is ideal: the prosecutor vs the convicted felon. She will contend that Trump has a problem with the opposite sex, repeatedly point to his outrageous, offensive comments and assert that American democracy is on the line, given Trump’s actions on January 6th and ambiguous pronouncements as to whether he will accept the result of the impending election if he doesn’t prevail.
Additionally, she will hammer Trump for appointing the judges who overturned Roe v Wade and his new deputy, JD Vance, for favouring a national ban on abortion and past distasteful remarks about women in crisis pregnancies. These attacks will certainly garner the enthusiastic approval of a substantial swathe of the public.
On the other hand, Harris is, of course, a high ranking member of Team Biden. Thus, she is easily tied to what are seen as the two biggest problems in the US at the moment: inflation and immigration. The GOP enjoys a massive advantage on both, and the perceived failure of the administration to solve either is easily linked to her. Harris is thought of as a California leftist by very many. Trump will reinforce that caricature at every opportunity.
Lastly, she was supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement, which is deeply unpopular in much of Middle America. Residents of places like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin will be reminded frequently of Harris’s leanings in advertising on AM radio, in carefully picked publications and in targeted robocalls. It’s not nice, but that’s the truth of presidential politics in battleground territory. And these ugly tactics often work.
Harris competed to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2020. She started with a bang – raising tens of millions and attracting tens of thousands to her announcement speech – but finished quickly, with a whimper. To be blunt, it had to have been a humiliating experience.
So can she come from behind and triumph? Initially, before crunching the numbers, there are two key questions. Has she learned lessons from her botched 2020 bid? How will she define herself to the wider citizenry in 2024? She must give people a reason to vote for her, not only against Trump.
If the answers to these are yes and well respectively, how she performs in the debate(s) with Trump and who she chooses as a running mate – Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania makes the most sense to me – are the next tests. Assuming Harris navigates them satisfactorily, Democrats would be hoping that she can rapidly close margins in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, which appeared increasingly out of reach for Biden.
Getting to the nitty-gritty of Electoral College maths, she probably has to beat Trump in at least two out of three of those states. Otherwise, the path to victory traverses Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. In that unfortunate scenario for her, I believe Harris would have to take all three.
That is a monumental ask, especially because lots of the women and men there whose hearts and minds she would need to capture concur with the sentiments of my late father, a lifelong Democrat: “I look at my party and see barely anyone I can identify or agree with. All I see is a bunch of crazy lefties.” I am just not convinced that Kamala Harris can win them over.
These are early musings on a race that has been renewed. In sum, Democrats are rejuvenated and in a far superior position than they were a few days ago. But Trump remains the favourite. As we are witnessing on an ongoing basis, however, the state of play is volatile. And there’s a way to go yet.
Larry Donnelly is a Boston lawyer, a Law Lecturer at the University of Galway and a political columnist with TheJournal.ie.
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