Vice President Kamala Harris is quickly becoming the Democratic Party’s likely replacement nominee, receiving plaudits Monday for saving the campaign and energizing the base, but the rosy assessment belies her lackluster performance as vice president and her embarrassingly short presidential campaign in 2020.
Less than 24 hours after President Biden announced he was bowing out of the 2024 election and passed the torch to Ms. Harris, she racked up the support of potential rivals and donors. It appears as if no one will challenge Ms. Harris for the Democratic nomination or pose a threat to her chances of securing her place at the top of the ticket.
Ms. Harris, 59, traveled to Wilmington, Delaware, to meet cheering campaign staff at a critical moment of transition from the Biden operation. She announced that Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon and other top officials would stay on in their roles for her.
“I know it’s been a roller-coaster, and we’re all filled with many mixed emotions about this,” Ms. Harris told the staff. “I will do everything in my power to unite our Democratic Party, to unite our nation and to win this election.”
Recalling her days as a prosecutor, she said she took on “perpetrators of all kinds — predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain.”
“So hear me when I say, ‘I know Donald Trump’s type,’” she said. “I will proudly put my record against his.”
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She said her campaign message will be about more than defeating Mr. Trump. She called it a battle between “two different visions for the future of our country — one focused on the future, the other focused on the past.”
Ms. Harris’ newly minted campaign said it raised more than $81 million in the first 24 hours, including 880,000 grassroots donations, a sign of enthusiasm among Democrats.
Still, Ms. Harris had become something of a national joke as the president’s designated “border czar” while smugglers and drug cartels overrun security. Critics also point out her nonsensical word salads.
Ms. Harris also will have to answer more urgent questions about whether she can avoid the same mistakes that plagued her first presidential campaign, which launched in January 2019 and collapsed in less than 10 months, before a single vote had been cast. She lacked money and a coherent message, and voters doubted her authenticity as a candidate.
“She was a pretty average candidate four years ago,” said David Schultz, a political science professor at Hamline University. “It’s hard to tell so far if she’s a changed person or if Democrats are so despondent over Biden that they are going to rally around literally anyone who is an alternative.”
Others argue that Ms. Harris has improved as a leader and communicator in office and that she found her political footing as a pro-choice advocate after the Supreme Court reversed the national right to an abortion in 2022. Ms. Harris made clear on Monday that she intends to bring the fight to Mr. Trump over abortion rights.
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Her nearly four years as Mr. Biden’s partner could help her quickly adjust to the rapid pace awaiting her at the top of the ticket. Supporters say Democrats should be confident that Ms. Harris has found her voice and is ready to take on Mr. Trump.
“There is a perception that Harris is a much better candidate than she was in 2020 because she is believed to have done a really good job on abortion rights,” said Robert Rowland, who teaches political rhetoric at the University of Kansas. “She comes across as a much stronger candidate.”
Mr. Trump said Monday on Truth Social that news media are trying “to turn ‘Dumb as a Rock’ Kamala Harris from a totally failed and insignificant Vice President into a future ‘Great’ President.”
“No, it just doesn’t work that way,” he said.
On the first full day of her campaign, Ms. Harris filled in for Mr. Biden, who was quarantined with COVID-19, at a White House event honoring college athletes. She spoke for less than five minutes and spent half of that time praising her boss.
Ms. Harris said Mr. Biden’s legacy of accomplishments is “unmatched in modern history.”
“In one term, he has already surpassed the legacy of most presidents who have served two terms in office,” she said.
“She’s got a small opportunity to define herself, or she will be defined,” Mr. Schulz said. “The public will give her a fresh look now, and it’s a make-or-break opportunity that could change the course of the campaign.”
Ms. Harris’ first presidential campaign was felled by a failure to offer consistent answers on a broad range of economic policies.
During the first Democratic candidate debate in 2019, Ms. Harris successfully attacked Mr. Biden for opposing school busing in the 1970s. After the debate, however, she struggled to answer whether she believed federally mandated busing should be used to integrate schools.
The Biden campaign seized on her failure to come up with an answer and accused Ms. Harris of “tying herself in knots trying to not answer the very question she posed.”
She was also one of two Democratic candidates who raised their hand when moderators asked whether they would abolish private health insurance. After being attacked for her answer, Ms. Harris changed it a day later, insisting she misread the question.
By November 2019, when her campaign was expected to be surging, donations began to dry up. She ended her campaign that December, weeks before the Iowa caucuses.
Still, in August 2020, Mr. Biden picked her as his running mate, fulfilling his promise to put a woman on the ticket. He declared Ms. Harris, the first Black/Asian American and female vice presidential candidate, the future of the Democratic Party.
Ms. Harris’ transition to vice president was not any smoother. By September 2021, less than 10 months in office, more Americans disapproved of her job performance than approved. As of last week, roughly 50% of Americans disapproved of her handling of the vice presidency, compared with just 38.6% who approved, according to aggregate polling compiled by FiveThirtyEight.
Even by Washington’s standards, she gained a reputation for churning through staff at an alarming rate. By the end of Ms. Harris’ first year, several high-profile staffers departed, including her chief of staff, chief spokesperson and communications director.
In less than four years, Ms. Harris’ office has had “extraordinarily high” staff turnover of 92%, according to the watchdog group Open The Books. As of March 31, only four of her initial 47 staffers from the first year in office are still employed “consistently and without interruption” by the vice president, the group said.
The resignations raised questions about Ms. Harris’ management style. Dogged rumors of disarray in her office have prompted concerns about whether she was ready to take over for Mr. Biden if he didn’t run for reelection.
Shortly after taking office, Mr. Biden anointed Ms. Harris as the administration’s “border czar,” tasking her with reducing the flow of illegal immigrants in the U.S.
Under her watch, the Biden administration set a record for migrant encounters on the southern border for three consecutive years. All told, roughly 10 million illegal immigrants crossed into the U.S., including 380 people on the terrorist watchlist.
Ms. Harris came under fire for a devastating interview with Lester Holt of NBC News in which she tried to defend the fact that she had not visited the border.
“I haven’t been to Europe,” she said, wondering why visiting the border would be necessary. “And I mean, I don’t understand the point you’re making.”
The answer also fueled Republican criticism that the border czar was essentially a do-nothing job.
“Immigration is undoubtedly the policy of greatest weakness for her,” said Mr. Rowland, who expects the vice president to blame Congress for the lack of movement on the issue.
The NBC News interview was one of several public appearances in which critics lambasted her for talking down to voters.
While appearing on a syndicated radio show in 2022, Ms. Harris explained the war in Ukraine as if she were talking to a child.
“Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a more powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So basically, that’s wrong, and it goes against everything that we stand for,” she said.
A year later, she incoherently tried to explain culture at a New Orleans music festival.
“Culture is — it is a reflection of our moment in our time, right? And in present culture is the way we express how we’re feeling about the moment,” she said.
The unflattering stories piled up, and some Democrats found her tenure as vice president underwhelming as she struggled with messaging and near invisibility. Some even called for Mr. Biden to replace her on the ticket.
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Ms. Harris’ profile and reputation shifted. She traveled to dozens of solid Democratic and battleground states, warning that the decision was a Republican invasion of voters’ private lives that would intensify unless voters supported Democrats.
During these speeches, Ms. Harris appeared to connect with younger voters and people of color, two groups whose enthusiasm for Mr. Biden had been slipping.
“She’s done a really good job reaching out to people concerned about abortion rights,” Mr. Rowland said. “She has a clear message. She’s forceful and much different than she was in 2020.”
She also made headlines in early 2023 when she became visibly emotional during a visit to a colonial-era African slave fort. In rare unscripted remarks, she called for the horror that happened there to always be remembered.
The trip was part of the Biden administration’s effort to boost her international profile. She was sent overseas to strengthen U.S. ties with Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia, three nations being courted by China.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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