Kamala Harris
Hello, I hope that your summer is going great.
The Democrats have quickly coalesced around Kamala Harris as their presidential nominee. I will be voting for her and her running mate this Fall. I hope she wins.
Those of you who know me know that I believe Trump to be a disastrous candidate who will accelerate the disintegration of what’s left of American institutional trust. I know several people who worked for his first administration who resigned or were fired. They testify to Trump’s malignant nature as a leader. Many of them quietly scuttled Trump’s worst ideas so they never saw the light. His 2nd administration would be much worse – it would be staffed with sycophants and toadies who will actually try to follow through on Trump’s lesser impulses. I fear we would see abuses of power, political revenge and profiteering on a level we have never seen before with Trump back, buttressed by a Supreme Court ruling that makes every official act defensible.
If you’ve seen Trump lately, he seems increasingly old and deranged. That’s not the person you want in charge.
I have had the grim sense that Trump would return to power for months, even years now. Part of that was driven by my conviction that Joe Biden was a weak, unpopular, aging incumbent. I was incredibly frustrated that Biden and the Democrats were going to essentially serve the country back to Trump on a silver platter without much of a fight.
Joe Biden stepping aside has changed that. Thanks Joe!
Kamala Harris has given the Democrats a new lease on life. She and her campaign have raised over $100 million in the first several days from hundreds of thousands of donors. Volunteers are signing up in droves. Kamala seems energized and so do voters and surrogates who were in despair just last week. The sense of inevitability that has accompanied Donald Trump has now lifted.
Can Kamala Harris win in November?
Her campaign is off to a phenomenal start. I think she’ll win the popular vote. But the road ahead remains fraught. The Democrats’ path to victory runs through six states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia. The Dems would like to include North Carolina on that list; the Republicans would like to include Virginia, Minnesota and New Hampshire. But it’s really just the core six swing states.
Before Kamala Harris became the candidate, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia had all drifted toward Trump, leaving Dems with the narrow path of winning all of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump is now spending $100 million in those three states to define Kamala negatively. Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, is a top choice to be Kamala’s running mate in part because he would help a lot in PA – he’s very popular there. I like that choice. Mark Kelly would have a similar, if lesser, impact in Arizona.
Normally, VP picks don’t matter all that much. But in this race everything could matter because it will likely be decided by a relative handful of voters in a few states.
On that front, Trump is likely regretting his pick of JD Vance, who doesn’t bring a lot to the table electorally and may make things worse at the margins. Vance is the rare kind of politician who seems to court hostility, minus the celebrity status to make it okay.
Kamala needs to simultaneously turnout Democratic base voters and win over wavering swing voters in the Midwest and the sunbelt who don’t like Trump. She remains undefined in the minds of many voters. It’s a sprint. Her path is narrow. But there is a path, which is something I could not have said only days ago.
It’s the best chance we have to fend off Trump. I hope the country takes it.
If you want better choices, we do too! Forward is backing good local candidates around the country and is growing all of the time. Check us out here. And if you're in LA we are having a picnic on August 4th!
