Less than 24 hours after President Biden’s poor performance at a debate in Atlanta, Vice President Kamala Harris stood before a crowd of supporters in a crucial state on Friday and defended his record and fitness for office.
But as Democrats openly discussed replacing Mr. Biden on the ballot, Ms. Harris also effectively made her own case.
She spoke clearly about Mr. Biden’s record, in a way that the president had not done the night before. She sought to draw a contrast between Mr. Biden and his opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, whose lies and untruths were clearly on display at the debate.
But another striking contrast – between Ms Harris and her boss – also concerned Democrats. Although the prospect of removing Mr. Biden from the candidacy remains far-fetched, Ms. Harris would most likely be one of half a dozen candidates vying for the presidential nomination if Mr. Biden were to drop out.
“You have to ask yourself, ‘How did we get here?'” former Sen. Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, said Thursday night after Ms. Harris gave a powerful interview on CNN following the debate. “How do we end up spending a lot of time tonight talking about the vice president instead of the president?”
Ms. Harris, 59, has spent much of her time as vice president trying to distinguish herself in what is, by definition, a supporting role. Her poll numbers have remained stubbornly low, on par with Mr. Biden’s. And as recently as last year, some Democrats were privately worried that she was a drain on the campaign.
Still, with Biden’s campaign in crisis, the focus is once again on Ms. Harris as she tries to calm a panicked Democratic Party. On Friday in Nevada, she made her loyalty to Mr. Biden clear.
“In a true leader, character is more important than style,” Ms. Harris said. “Donald Trump simply does not have the character to be president of the United States.”
Ms. Harris has been campaigning intensely for months and has won praise from some former critics for her work on abortion rights, Gaza and black maternal health.
Her aides say she is connecting with voters who don’t necessarily fit with Mr. Biden, such as minorities and younger voters. In the space of 12 hours this month, she traveled to Atlanta to talk about economic opportunities for black men who wavered in their support for Mr. Biden, before traveling to Switzerland for a summit to rally support for Ukraine.
She has also become one of Mr Biden’s fiercest defenders. In February, she filed a legal reversal of the special counsel’s report, which concluded that Mr. Biden was a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and had “declining abilities with age.”
On Friday, some Democrats said Ms. Harris’ post-debate performance was exactly what they wanted to see on the debate stage in Atlanta.
She spoke about the administration’s position on abortion after Mr. Biden fumbled on an issue that should have been a slam dunk for him. During her appearance on CNN, she sharply criticized Mr. Trump, saying he was “perfect” on the issue and highlighted the fact that his Supreme Court decisions were crucial in overturning Roe v. Wade.
“Vice President Harris expressed the feelings of millions of Americans last night by bluntly defending President Biden and completely shutting down Donald Trump,” said Quentin James, co-founder of Collective PAC. “We wanted to see more of that righteous indignation on the debate stage.”
Mr James said he hoped the government would send Ms Harris more often: “She is the best speaker we have at the moment.”
In her CNN interview, Ms. Harris acknowledged a “slow start” for Mr. Biden during the debate. But she also tried to figure out what she thought the bottom line was: that a 90-minute debate was less important than three and a half years of government.
On Friday, she repeated the same message. “I see him in the Oval Office negotiating bipartisan agreements and in the Situation Room keeping our country safe,” Ms. Harris said, adding that the race won’t be decided “one night in June.”
Fletcher N. Smith Jr., A former state representative in South Carolina who worked as a surrogate for the Biden campaign in 2007 and 2020 said there needs to be “a real conversation in the Democratic Party about where our leadership is going.”
But Mr. Smith said he was nervous about Ms. Harris leading the election because of the way she handled migration, a key concern for voters. Ms. Harris faced a setback over record numbers of crossings at the southern border because Mr. Biden tasked her with tackling poverty and corruption in the region early in his term.
“If the Democrats decided to nominate her as the front-runner, we would still be in the same place we are today,” Smith said. “It will still be a close race.”
Fear was high at Ms. Harris’s campaign rally on Friday.
Stephen Stubbs, an undecided voter, questioned Mr. Biden’s mental capacity.
“Who runs the country?” Mr. Stubbs said he asked himself that after watching the debate. “Let Kamala in!” he added, hoping that Mr. Biden would resign.
Camille Kauer, a black woman from North Carolina who attended Mr. Biden’s rally in Raleigh on Friday, called Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris a “dynamic duo.”
She said she was excited by the prospect of Ms. Harris one day becoming president. Ms. Harris has already made history by becoming the first woman, the first Black American and the first Asian American to serve as vice president.
But Ms. Kauer had doubts about whether Ms. Harris would get a shot at the top job.
“The party isn’t really good at supporting black women,” she said.
Simon J. Levien contributed reporting from Las Vegas.
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2024-06-29 20:48:13
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