He was there when he was a Democratic governor in the White House, and he was on the line when he called the prime minister of Israel, and he was by his side on the balcony overlooking the South Lawn when he celebrated the Fourth of July. When the fireworks were about to start, they held their hands together and threw them into the air in a unified motion.
In an era of uncertainty in the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris has remained physically and politically close to President Biden, determined not to let anyone say she was disloyal. But as a result, it means that people who have to go up when they go down don’t seem to do anything to prepare for life’s challenges.
With Mr. Biden’s future, perhaps no one is more sensitive than Ms. Harris. For the first time since being sworn in as vice president in January 2021, the Democrat is giving a second look seriously, with many thinking he could lead the party in November. But, as a practical matter, they should ignore the conversation and deny any interest unless Mr. Biden turns it around and passes the baton.
“She’s in an awkward position,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, a civil rights leader, who spoke to Ms. Harris on Friday night at the Essence Culture Festival in New Orleans. “But the vice president’s job is awkward.”
Counselor Ms. Harris remains adamant that he did nothing to prepare if he had to start his presidential campaign from scratch, and there is no evidence to the contrary. But Democrats are acting cautiously, even without consent, quietly spinning their wheels about the Harris campaign.
If Mr. Biden withdraws from the race, as some Democrats have urged, there are two main scenarios for Ms. Harris. If he doesn’t resign immediately, making him a sitting president, they could immediately endorse him as the party’s nominee against former President Donald J. Trump and throw his weight around to secure the nomination at the Democratic National Convention next month.
Other Democrats could still take the nomination, but it would be difficult to overcome the gains they would make if Mr. Biden openly asked convention delegates to pledge their support for him. However, in the second scenario, he could leave it up to the delegates to decide the nominees, opening the door to a more competitive and volatile week of fighting.
Speculation has been rife about the pair’s chances of running if they win. Mrs. Harris will be the first black and Asian American woman to be nominated by a major party, and in the cold, identity-driven logic of modern politics many think she should balance the ticket with a white man, preferably one who is not too visible. liberal.
Two people close to the Biden-Harris team said the emerging favorite is Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, a Southern moderate who needs to work with Republican lawmakers in a state that some Democrats think could be flipped in November. Mrs. Mr. Harris and Mr. Cooper knew each other when each was the state’s attorney general.
Others often mentioned by people close to the Biden-Harris campaign include Govs. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Mr. Beshear impressed many national Democrats by winning a second term in a conservative state last year, while Mr. Shapiro could theoretically help Democrats capture Pennsylvania, a critical battle for victory in November. But Kentucky does not appear to be an option and Mr. Shapiro has been in office for less than two years.
How Ms. Harris could see such calculations is anyone’s guess. A message from her office has been sent to staff members, donors and allies: No speculation, no conversation. It will only hurt him, not to mention the president. He knew he could not engage in such private discussions, allies said, because it would leak and make him disloyal to Mr. Biden.
“No one is having that kind of conversation,” said Donna Brazile, former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. “And I know just based on the conversations I’ve had and the conversations I’ve had with other people. He stood up, stuck up. He respects the president; he’ll stand up to the president. He’s comfortable with the president. That’s not what happened. Nobody sent someone like me this.”
Mr. Sharpton said that during his conversation with Ms. Harris on Friday night, he gave no indication of making plans. Still, she says she believes that others are thinking about her. “I think there are some independents from him who are ready,” he said. “Some say they didn’t get a signal from him, like me. But there are people getting ready if they don’t.”
If Ms. Harris wants to prove her loyalty to Mr. Biden, there is concern in her circle about whether her advisers will retaliate. Some of Harris’ allies suspect that some of Biden’s allies are trying to save him by telling wavering Democrats that they can’t leave him because they’ll be stuck with a vice president who can’t win in November.
Mrs. Harris does not publicly entertain any of that. Instead, she has offered herself as a one-woman validator, reassuring nervous Democrats about the president even as she implicitly made the case with her own performance.
“I saw Joe Biden when the cameras were on and when the cameras were off; in the Oval Office, negotiating bipartisan deals,” he told a campaign rally in Las Vegas a day after Mr. Biden’s debate with Mr. Trump. “I see him in the Situation Room, keeping our country safe; on the world stage, meeting with foreign leaders who often ask for advice. Joe Biden is a leader who always fights for the people of our country. He fights, and he wins. And he wins. And he won.”
Ms. Harris is not the first vice president to feel conflicted by the president who named her while nursing her own ambitions for office. Being the vice president is a tough job, the only person other than the president who is elected nationally and has power generally derived from the top of the ticket. In the famous words of John Adams, who first served in that position, being vice president means “I am nothing, but I can be everything.”
Their sensitivities are very different at certain times in history. Vice President Gerald R. Ford made a point of showing unwavering loyalty even as the Watergate scandal increased pressure on President Richard M. Nixon to resign. So did Vice President Al Gore when President Bill Clinton was impeached and faced pressure to resign for swearing about an extramarital affair.
Mr. Ford and Mr. Gore each understood that a contrary understanding would be very damaging. But loyalty also has a cost. Mr. Ford eventually pardoned Mr. Nixon, a deeply unpopular move that could have swayed the election in 1976. Mr. Gore was given much grief by announcing on the day of Mr. Clinton’s impeachment that he would still “go down in the history books as one of the greatest presidents.” Mr. Gore lost his own presidential campaign in 2000 and was blamed in part for Mr. Clinton’s scandal.
“The worst thing the vice president can do at this point is worry about getting the president out,” said Elaine Kamarck, a former aide to Mr. Gore now at the Brookings Institution. “It just totally backfires. I guess some unsophisticated person called Kamala Harris saying: ‘Can I do this? Can I do that?’ And if he’s smart, he’ll shut up a lot.
One of the challenges for Ms. Harris is that he does not have an established national political organization of his own to turn to when the opportunity arises. His own presidential campaign in 2020 collapsed before the first primary.
But those close to him expect him to inherit the Biden-Harris organization and the $240 million Democratic bank account if Mr. Biden is out, before the nomination or certainly after if he gets the nod. While he will install some of the most trusted people at the top of the campaign, he will join the race that Mr. Biden started but could not finish.
In the meantime, he will continue to press forward, campaigning in Las Vegas again on Tuesday, Dallas on Wednesday and Greensboro, NC, on Thursday, sending Mr. Biden’s message to everyone who will listen – and waiting to see if he goes, as Adams did, from nothing.
