Kamala's ascension to the top of the Democratic Party ticket was "Historic!" "Meteoric!" "Messianic!" and pretty much any other word ending in "ic" you can think of. She's raised all sorts of money and quickly secured support from enough delegates to be the presumptive nominee. Key party members have also endorsed her, including Barack Obama, who originally supported an open selection process for choosing Joe Biden's replacement. It sure looks like Democrats are bursting with enthusiasm over their new savior.
Or are they?
"Behind the public jubilation over Vice President Harris’s swift rise to become their party’s likely nominee for president, Democratic lawmakers are privately anxious about her prospects of defeating former President Trump," reports The Hill. According to their report, there is concern about how she is "largely untested as a candidate and faces serious challenges."
The anxiety, for the most part, has been set aside out of a deep sense of relief that President Biden decided to drop his reelection bid. After months of unease over the 81-year-old incumbent, Democratic lawmakers are glad to rally behind Harris in hopes she will rev up Democratic donors along with young and minority voters.
But concerns are already bubbling up over Harris’s ability to connect as well as Biden did in 2020 with white working-class and union voters in three states that were critical to defeating Trump: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“She wasn’t a great candidate,” one Democratic senator said of Harris’s performance as a presidential candidate in 2020, when she pulled out of Democratic primary before the Iowa caucuses.
“And she may not be as a political campaigner as good as Biden was in his prime,” the senator added.
Many tout her experience as a prosecutor as being a tremendous asset, but Harris's 2020 presidential campaign ended in disaster, as she dropped out before a primary vote was cast. If she couldn't convince Democrats she was a great candidate, it's hard to see how she will convince the entire nation she deserves to be president.
Logan Russell, the president of the Republican consulting firm Redvail, sees her record as a major liability for her going forward. "Vice President Kamala Harris' accomplishments in her role as the first female Vice President can be summed up by her appeal to the American people," Russell told PJ Media. "Not since August 2021 has Harris' approval been higher than her disapproval ratings. And things are not getting better for Vice President Harris even as she becomes the heir apparent to lead the Democratic presidential ticket after President Biden's unusual announcement that he would not be seeking the Democratic nomination (via X, formerly Twitter)."
Related: Democrat Civil War Watch: California Democrat Delegates Call Kamala 'Not Our Best Candidate'
Russell pointed out that, as a district attorney in San Francisco, Harris was criticized in 2010 for her office’s misconduct involving concealed evidence, leading to the dismissal of over 600 drug cases. As California’s Attorney General, she faced controversy over her opposition to disqualifying a district attorney’s office involved in a scandal and her initial resistance to DNA testing in a high-profile death penalty case, though she later reversed her stance.
"While Harris' record remains a point of contention for many voters, a deep dive into the shifting of her positions, mishandling of critical roles and overall disregard for civil liberties - her chances of winning the White House in November are slim at best," he concluded.
Chuck Warren, a Political Strategist and the host of Breaking Battlegrounds Politics Podcast, told PJ Media that Harris's biggest strength "lies in being able to galvanize the Democrat’s base of support – women and minorities who are crucial in any election campaign victory."
He added, "Her team must address any remaining doubts associated with those years spent before becoming the country’s vice president. Incidentally, it encompasses replying well to negative stories while emphasizing where she has been triumphant and proficient in substance."
Another problem for Harris, a San Francisco liberal, is the lack of time to win over voters, especially in the Rust Belt states where she desperately needs to win.
“Everything I’ve always heard is she doesn’t have that many relationships in Pennsylvania, and she hasn’t established any kind of identity here,” a Democrat strategist source told The Hill. “Obviously, it’s a very big difference with Joe Biden.”
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