Is Harris Inevitable? No, But A Solid Start For Sure

Now isn’t the time to let up

We’re eight days into full Kamala mania and judging by the enthusiasm, Vice President Harris has assembled a juggernaut that will make her the first black-Asian-female president and save our democracy from Donald Trump.

Or not.

I’ll explain the “or not” in a few paragraphs, but first let’s give some respect to Harris. After President Biden’s debate debacle showed he could not wage a vigorous campaign, Harris remained loyal, proving she was a principled team member.  She didn’t learn of Biden’s decision to withdraw until the morning he announced it. Once he did, and endorsed Harris, she embarked on a flawless effort to seize control of her party and show she was more than ready to run.

In the 24 hours after Biden’s endorsement, Harris’s aides rushed to his headquarters and quickly transformed it into a Harris operation. In the meantime, she made at least 100 phone calls to key party officials, Democratic National Convention delegates, and the big donors whose contributions will be essential to her campaign’s finances.      

Although it was only a week ago, it’s hard to remember that on the first day, her party was divided over how to replace Biden. His endorsement was a huge advantage for Harris, but there were influential party members who were not confident in her abilities. They remembered her dismal showing as a 2020 primary candidate when the lack of an effective organization resulted in her dropping out before the first votes were cast.

Determined to put the best anti-Trump person on the ballot, Harris’s doubters talked about conducting a series of debates followed by an open convention. Potential candidates included:  Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, and others.

In a remarkable show of strength, Harris quashed the open convention idea. Potential challengers declared their loyalty and Harris settled on a theme: She would be the former top prosecutor; Trump would be the felon who had been convicted in a New York State court. She then embarked on a series of public appearances where she was met by crowds who had feared Biden would stay in the race and had caught Harris fever. Within a week she raised more than $200 million.

As a political practitioner, I look at Harris’s one-week dash with a sense of awe. Trump’s team may not be awestruck, but they have been dumbstruck. Their man, who has used insults and blistering nicknames to make mincemeat of other opponents, can’t seem to find the words that stick to Harris. He started out calling her, among other things,  “evil” and “a bum” and “ failed vice president.” More recently the GOP campaign has decided to attack her struggle to manage the crisis at the Southern border and her past criticisms of the police.

When Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance appeared at a rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota the line to enter the venue stretched for a mile and 8,000 people crowded inside to take in the spectacle. In their speeches, the candidates revived the issues they had pasted onto Biden – immigration, inflation, crime – and painted her, in Trump’s words, as a “radical left lunatic.” In an echo of his false claims of fraud in 2000, Trump said that he would win deep blue Minnesota if “they don’t cheat.”                     

At the rally, Trump reassured his supporters that his politics of rage, which is a very potent force, will continue. He said, “I want to be nice, They all say, ‘I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed since two weeks ago. Something affected him.’” As the crowd cheered he added, “ “No, I haven’t changed, “Maybe I’ve gotten worse. Because I get angry at the incompetence that I witness every single day.”

With Trump and Vance slowly finding their footing it’s time to revisit the polls that showed Harris making some gains during her intense honeymoon period. She is doing better than Biden. However, when ABC News gathered the results of dozens of recent polls they found, in the aggregate, that Trump remained slightly ahead, nationally. Of course, everyone knows that the Electoral College count, which is more important than the popular vote, will come down to a handful of “swing” states including Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona. Trump still leads in three out of five of these states.   

Trump has always enjoyed a base of support – I estimate it at about 40 percent – that will defy Harris’ appeal. In the meantime, minor candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jill Stein, and Cornel West threaten to siphon-off Harris votes. Stein, we must remember, took enough votes away from Hillary Clinton that she made the difference in the Electoral College and gave us Trump in the first place.

Now that I’ve offered you a sober plunge into the reality Harris faces, I must say that we have ample reason for hope. In three years she has become a far more effective public speaker, and she is armed with her own zingers, which she is already aiming at her opponent.  The Biden campaign’s infrastructure has been converted to the Harris cause, and she will certainly have the “anyone-but-Trump” coalition behind her. The task now, for the rest of us, is to maintain our sense of urgency.

We still have three months to go before Election Day. This is an eternity in politics, and that means a Harris victory is far from inevitable. Now ain’t the time to ease up.