The Kamala Harris Effect
Kamala Harris' candidacy has turned the 2024 election on its head and Democrats are here for it.
As the conversation about Joe Biden stepping aside ramped up after the June 27th debate, it was pretty clear, at least to me, that if he did so it could only be Kamala Harris to rise in his place. This was true not just for logistical reasons such as access to campaign funds and infrastructure, but also for basic optical reasons: There was simply no world in which I could envision her being passed over for the nomination. Plus, she’d earned it as President Biden’s trusted No. 2 for the past nearly four years, and her being elected president would be part of Biden’s lasting legacy. It had to be Kamala with Joe’s blessing. Period.
In the wake of the debate, more than three weeks of turmoil ensued, with Democrats arguing about whether Joe Biden should step aside and what would come next if he did. Whenever the prospect of Kamala Harris taking over the top of the ticket arose, there were three primary concerns I heard from skeptics: 1. Won’t that seem anti-democratic after Biden won the primary? 2. Aren’t Republicans going to put legal obstacles to anyone but Biden being on state ballots? And 3. Can she really win!?
Now that we’re 48 hours into Biden’s historic decision to step aside and endorse his Vice President to be the standard bearer of the Democratic ticket, we have seen an incredible surge in support for VP Harris, and some of those concerns have no doubt been allayed.
Even before Monday ended, Harris had secured the support from a majority of pledged delegates to the Democratic convention ensuring she will be the Democratic nominee. In the first 24 hours after Harris declared her candidacy, she raised $81 million from small donors, a new campaign fundraising record. And a wide array of labor unions came out swinging with endorsements for Harris for President.
Importantly, the grassroots organization Win With Black Women mobilized 44,000 African American women to join a Zoom call on Sunday in support of Harris, raising $1.5 million in three hours.
It’s been a stunning rebuke to those who felt Biden’s withdrawal would result in even more chaos and Democratic in-fighting. In the past 48 hours, we instead have witnessed a level of genuine unity among Democrats that puts the fake unity on display at the Republican National Convention last week to shame.
Team Biden orchestrated a flawless handover of his campaign infrastructure to his Vice President. Biden even jumped on a call from his home in Delaware, as he continues to recover from Covid, declaring movingly “I’m watching you, kid. I love you.”
Still, it’s worth returning to some core concerns people expressed, now that the Kamala Harris for President scenario has gone from hypothetical fan fiction to real life.
In today’s piece, I’ll address each of these concerns, explain why they are largely moot, and discuss why we should be bullish on a Harris presidential ticket heading into November.
Isn’t This Just An Anti-Democratic Coronation?
In a word, no.
As Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison made clear in an announcement on Sunday:
“In the coming days, the Party will undertake a transparent and orderly process to move forward as a united Democratic Party with a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump in November. This process will be governed by established rules and procedures of the Party. Our delegates are prepared to take seriously their responsibility in swiftly delivering a candidate to the American people.”
And sure enough, when Kamala Harris put her hat in the ring after Joe Biden endorsed her, she said:
“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination.”
And that’s precisely what she’s been doing since Sunday.
Of course, anyone else is and has been welcome to put their hat in the ring. But what we’ve seen is an overwhelming show of Democratic allegiance and enthusiasm for Kamala Harris. State by state, delegates that had been pledged—but not bound—to Joe Biden have signaled on conference calls with party chairs that they support Harris.
As of Monday night, Harris had blown past the 1,976 pledged delegates needed to secure the support of a majority of the delegates at the Democratic National Convention when it kicks off on August 19th.
According to The Washington Post, so far Harris has won the support of 2,887 pledged delegates, and that number will only continue to rise. Of course, having the support of delegates on a conference call is technically symbolic at this point, but it nearly guarantees that she will have the support needed to win the nomination on the first ballot at next month’s convention.
Importantly, the only ones able to vote on that first ballot according to DNC rules are pledged delegates earned through the primary process. Superdelegates, which include current and former elected officials and other party leaders are not able to vote on the first ballot.
Joe Biden earned 3,896 delegates through the 2024 Democratic primaries, who, per DNC rules, are free to vote their conscience at the convention. So, once Joe Biden dropped out, the question became, Where would they go? The fact that they have overwhelmingly gone for Kamala Harris should not be surprising. Not only did Joe Biden endorse her as his preferred candidate, but weren’t Democratic primary voters who supported Biden in the primary also implicitly voting for Harris as well? I know that’s how I saw my primary vote.
So, while Republicans will try to portray the shift of the past 48 hours as the result of some sort of anti-democratic backroom deal that, as GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson has put it, “overrules the votes of over 14 million Americans,” it’s actually quite the contrary.
A new CBS News/YouGov poll taken after Joe Biden dropped out found that 79% of self-identified Democrats want Kamala Harris to be the nominee. That is the will of the voters.
And as Rep. Dean Phillips, who himself ran a brief primary campaign against Joe Biden to try to raise the alarm about voters’ concerns about the president’s age, posted on X:
What About Republicans’ Legal Shenanigans?
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has been going in front of any camera that would have him to threaten legal challenges to Democrats’ “replacing Joe Biden on state ballots.”
Beyond the absurdity of a guy who supported Trump’s attempted insurrection in order to overturn an entire national election lecturing Democrats about democracy, the premise of Johnson’s complaint is fundamentally flawed.
Joe Biden is not on any ballots yet, so there’s nothing to replace. And what basis for a legal challenge would there be exactly?
As MSNBC’s Jordan Rubin writes:
For starters, there doesn’t appear to be any legal impediment to nominating someone besides Biden (seemingly Vice President Kamala Harris, at this point). Though Biden was the presumptive nominee after winning all but one Democratic contest earlier this year, he hadn’t officially been nominated. That process was expected to take place next month. And despite what some Republicans have claimed, the relevant state ballot deadlines for appearing on the ballot haven’t passed.
This echoes Democratic election lawyer Mark Elias, who made clear:
Of course, when pressed, Johnson has been unable to name any laws that would serve as the basis for a challenge. Still, the fear of legal shenanigans by Republicans is certainly understandable, given who’s at the top of their ticket. And now it appears their legal strategy may be shifting.
Whereas prior to Sunday, Republicans had been questioning the legality of a candidate other than Biden taking the top of the Democratic ticket, now it appears their lawsuits may instead focus on whether Harris can access Biden’s campaign funds.
Within hours of Joe Biden’s announcement, his campaign committee, according to The Washington Post, “tried to make the handoff to Harris official — submitting an amended filing to the FEC changing its name to ‘Harris for President.’”
Federal Election Commissioners are split on whether that is allowed.
Per WaPo:
“Replacing a presidential candidate and handing over his committee to someone else is unprecedented under current campaign finance law,” Sean Cooksey, a Republican who is the FEC chairman, said Sunday. “It raises a host of open questions about whether it is legal, what limits apply and what contributors’ rights are.”
Dara Lindenbaum, an FEC commissioner appointed by Biden, offered the opposite view: “The Biden for President Committee is the campaign committee for President Biden and Vice President Harris,” she said. “The funds stay with her so long as she remains on the ticket.”
So, what’s the end game?
The six-member FEC panel that would rule on such matters has long been evenly split between Republicans and Democrats — often preventing campaign finance rules from being enforced. Its partisan divide raises the possibility that commissioners could deadlock on the question of whether Harris can assume control of the campaign’s cash. Were that to happen, several lawyers said, the potential challenge would probably land in court.
But as NPR reports:
The Federal Election Commission says it is a complicated situation, and legal challenges are likely. But the commission is known to move slowly. McCammon says this means Harris can probably spend the money and pay fines later if there’s a problem.
Can Kamala Harris Really Win?
While Republicans cosplayed unity during their national convention last week, suppressing any mention of divisive topics such as abortion rights, January 6th, or Project 2025, the takeaway for Democrats after Trump’s interminable and rambling acceptance speech on Thursday was: This guy is so beatable.
But some genuinely worried whether Kamala Harris was the one to do it.
Considering the surge in fundraising and the excitement Kamala Harris’ candidacy is inspiring, a lot of that worry has dissipated.
And a new poll out Tuesday confirms what may be a fundamental shift in the race.
A brand new Reuters/Ipsos poll, which was in the field yesterday and today, shows Harris beating Trump by 2 points in a head-to-head match-up and by 4 points if RFK Jr. is included.
This is an improvement of 4 points over Joe Biden’s 2-point deficit in their head-to-head poll just last week.
Additionally, a new Morning Consult poll taken since Harris declared for President found that Democrats “are more likely than Republicans (27% to 24%) to say they’re ‘much more motivated’ to participate in the political process”, which tracks with the comparable margin during the 2020 election.
We can also look to a CBS News/YouGov poll taken last week, in which Kamala Harris trailed Trump by 3 points nationally, to get a sense of where Harris’ strengths lie among the electorate, particularly relative to Joe Biden.
Harris is making those gains against Trump among women voters, Black voters, and young voters.
The hope for many Democrats is that Harris can reassemble the winning Obama coalition.
But beyond polling, one underappreciated reason many are bullish on Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket against Donald Trump is the new narrative at the heart of the presidential race.
Not only does it turn the race from a referendum on Joe Biden to a referendum on Donald Trump and refocuses the age question on Trump, but now the entire dynamic of the election has become the Prosecutor vs. the Felon.
As The New York Times reported:
Allies of Ms. Harris have already telegraphed that she will run a campaign framed around a ‘prosecutor versus felon’ theme, highlighting her experience as a prosecutor and underscoring the fact that Mr. Trump has been indicted in multiple jurisdictions and convicted of 34 felonies.
The prosecutor-versus-felon approach may appeal to undecided voters who had been sour on both Mr. Trump and President Biden. It may also goad Mr. Trump, who reacts strongly to criticism, into resurrecting the language he has used against other Black female prosecutors, such as Letitia James in New York and Fani Willis in Georgia, both of whom he has called ‘racist’ and attacked in personal terms.
It’s no accident that Harris’ 2019 ad framing Harris as the “anti-Trump” has resurfaced and gone viral.
As Harris tweeted at the time:
I prosecuted sex predators. Trump is one.
I shut down for-profit scam colleges. He ran one.
I held big banks accountable. He's owned by them.
You can watch the ad below:
And sure enough, that’s precisely how Harris framed the race during her first appearance at her campaign HQ in Wilmington, Delaware yesterday.
Before I became vice president and before I was elected as U.S. senator, I was the attorney general of California. Before that, I was a prosecutor who took on predators, fraudsters, and cheaters.
So I know Donald Trump’s type.
In fact, it’s already a new online ad.
Boom.
In short, over the last 48 hours, the entire race has been turned on its head. The one issue bogging down President Joe Biden’s poll numbers against Trump—his age—is now not only no longer an issue for Democrats, but it’s been completely turned around on Trump, who is the oldest nominee for president in our nation’s history.
In addition, there are even reports that Trump is having some buyer’s remorse over his choice of JD Vance to be his running mate, a choice that was widely seen as one that simply doubled down on Trump’s own strengths, rather than expanding his voter base. That pick may have made sense when his opponent was Joe Biden, who was running 5 points behind Trump with his fundraising stalled. No longer.
Looking back, it’s no wonder Trump and his allies were so desperate to keep Joe Biden in the race, and why so many of them are having meltdowns at how the last 48 hours have played out.
Just days ago many Democrats saw fears of a 1968 Chicago redux at the upcoming Democratic National Convention. But thanks to the seamless passing of the torch from Biden to Harris, we are now looking at a party truly unified behind a dynamic candidate at the top of the ticket. Harris’s leadership signals the future not only of the Democratic Party, but of our nation, and her lived experience could not be a more perfect counterpoint to doddering racist convicted felon, Donald Trump.
As we get closer to the election, we’ll continue to cover important questions like the ones above. If you find pieces like this helpful and you’re financially able to, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support our work today.
A week ago I was trying to contain existential dread. Now I'm trying to contain my excitement!
I have little doubt that over the last week, Biden has worked with Harris to plan the timing of Biden's announcement and the next steps she'd need to take. Joe is too good a politician to not do that. He caught the Republicans (and the press) flat footed by announcing Sunday after the pundit shows were over. Brilliant move.