By Jeff Mason and Bianca Flowers
(Reuters) – The Democratic Party will take a historic gamble if Vice President Kamala Harris becomes the presidential candidate, betting that a Black woman can overcome racism, sexism and her own missteps as a politician to defeat Republican Donald Trump.
In more than two centuries of democracy, American voters have elected only one Black president and never a woman, a record that makes even some Black voters wonder if Harris can crash through the hardest ceiling in US politics.
“Is her race and gender going to matter? Absolutely,” said LaTosha Brown, a political strategist and founder of the Black Lives Matter Fund.
Harris will face another big challenge: if he is promoted to the top of the ticket, he will have almost three months to campaign and unite the party and donors behind him.
But many Democrats are excited about his chances.
About three dozen Democratic lawmakers have expressed fear that President Joe Biden, 81, will lose the election that the party is calling a battle for the future of US democracy because he does not have the mental and physical stamina to win and serve another four years.
Many fear Trump and the Republicans may not only take the White House, but both houses of Congress.
Biden reiterated on Friday that he would not step down and would continue campaigning after recovering from COVID-19. Harris pressed his case for re-election Friday at a fundraiser.
Harris, 59, is two decades younger than Trump and the party leader on abortion rights, an issue that resonates with younger voters and the Democratic progressive base. Supporters argue he will energize those voters, consolidate Black support, and bring sharp debating skills to making the political case against the former president.
His candidacy will provide a contrast to Trump and his running mate for vice president, Sen. JD Vance, both white men on the Republican ticket, Brown said.
“That for me is a reflection of America’s past. He is a reflection of America now and in the future,” said Brown.
But despite receiving praise in recent weeks for his strong defense of Biden, some Democrats remain concerned about Harris’ shaky first two years, his lackluster campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination, and — most importantly — the weight of America’s long history of racial and gender discrimination. .
In a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, Harris and Trump were tied with 44% support each in a July 15-16 Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted immediately after the Trump assassination attempt. Trump leads Biden 43% to 41% in the same poll, although the 2 percentage point difference is within a 3 percentage point margin of error.
Harris’ approval rating, though low, is higher than Biden’s. According to polling outfit Five Thirty Eight, 38.6 percent of Americans approve of Harris while 50.4 percent disapprove. Biden has 38.5 percent approval and 56.2 percent disapproval.
‘There is no safe option’
“If you think that there is a consensus among people who want Joe Biden to leave, that they will support Kamala – Vice President Harris – you are wrong,” Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, a Biden supporter, said on Instagram. “There is no safe option.”
The United States elected Barack Obama, the first and only black president in 2008. The only woman to lead the presidential ticket of a major party, Hillary Clinton, lost to Trump in 2016.
Supporters of Harris, the first woman and the first Black and South Asian to serve as vice president, say she has been exposed to unfair attacks related to race and gender and is ready for more.
“America has a history of racism, sexism, so I’m sure that’s going to be a factor in this conversation, a factor in the campaign,” said Jamal Simmons, a former Harris aide.
But he said there is a flip side: Black voters can be galvanized if Harris is put at the top of the ticket, and women, including some who regret not voting for Clinton in 2016, will again support him.
“It’s also true that he would benefit from his race and his gender, that many African Americans would be able to gather his candidacy,” he said.
Harris benefits from greater name recognition than any other Democratic leader who has been floated as a potential presidential candidate, he said. California Governor Gavin Newsom and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer are among those being talked about in Democratic circles as replacements.
“While he has flaws and flaws like everyone else, we know those flaws and flaws, so you can build your campaign with clarity. The other candidates are unknown,” Simmons said.
One former Democratic lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Harris was a bigger risk because of her record than her race.
Harris was plagued by staff turnover in his first run as vice president and showed little progress in his portfolio of protecting voting rights and curbing migration from Central America.
“I think race is just a compounding factor or an exacerbating factor,” said the former member of parliament. “Anything would be a gamble, but I like the other candidates, even if it means Kamala at the top of the ticket.”
‘PATRIARCHY IS HELL OF MEDICINE’
Trump has used racist and sexist language, explicitly and in code. In 2020 he said he had “heard” that Harris, a US citizen born in California, was ineligible to run for vice president.
At a rally in Michigan on Saturday, Trump slammed Harris for the way he laughed.
“I call her Laughing Kamala,” Trump said. “You ever see him laugh? He’s crazy.”
The Trump campaign said Democrats were spreading “classic disinformation” about their language and noted Harris’ feud with Biden in the 2019 debate over school buses and her criticism of Biden for working with segregationists in the Senate.
“In contrast, President Trump is polling at the highest level with African Americans,” Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller said in a statement.
Trump made false “birtherism” claims against Obama, who was born in Hawaii. The forgery gained traction among right-wing activists and a nationalist base, prompting an exasperated Obama, blasting “carnival barkers,” to release a longer version of the birth certificate from the White House.
Polls at the time showed a quarter of all Americans — and 45 percent of Republicans — believed Obama was not born in this country.
“You’ve got birtherism 2.0,” said Cliff Albright, co-founder and CEO of the Black Voters Matter Fund, an Atlanta-based non-profit, referring to Harris.
Nadia Brown, director of the women’s and gender studies program at Georgetown University, said there are black political leaders who remain reluctant to accept women in key leadership roles.
“Patriarchy is a dangerous drug,” Brown said. “With racism, we know, we can call it. a mood that we do not see as articulately written as a real reticence to have a Black woman especially as a leader.”
Harris’ position in the party improved with his aggressive advocacy for reproductive rights after the Supreme Court in 2022 struck down Roe v Wade, which protected women’s right to abortion.
Biden credited him with helping stem the “red wave” of Republican victories in that year’s midterm elections, and Harris has crisscrossed the country as the campaign’s top spokeswoman for abortion rights.
Harris was also able to gain Biden’s strong support among black voters, which helped propel him to the 2020 Democratic nomination.
But black women have not given up on Biden.
Donna Brazile, a political strategist and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Friday she joined 1,400 black women in a letter of support for the Biden-Harris ticket and condemned divisions within the party.
And if the party is united under Harris, he may face criticism from voters who say the Democratic leader is covering up his shortcomings.
“I’m done with the Democrats. So many people know about Biden’s condition and hide it. Kamala is part of it,” said Gina Gannon, 65, a retiree in the war-torn state of Georgia, which voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
