Kamala Harris Has Turned This Into A Whole New Campaign

Suddenly the election looks winnable, so how would she actually govern?

Democrats roll into Chicago for their convention today, with the presidential campaign going way better than they thought possible just a few weeks ago. 

Kamala Harris has surged in the polls since becoming the presumptive and then official nominee. She is ahead nationally and in swing states, with surveys showing new, small leads in the “Blue Wall” states (Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) and suddenly tightened races in Sunbelt states (Arizona, Georgia and Nevada) where Joe Biden was on the verge of falling out of contention. Even North Carolina might be in play.

Behind these numbers is an impressive campaign -- and an impressive candidate too. This should not come as a surprise if you’re reading this newsletter. Following the debate debacle that first created the crisis of confidence in Biden’s candidacy, I was among those who wrote that Harris was the most likely Democrat to replace him -- and that she has a lot more going for her than her dismal reputation suggested.

I confess I didn’t think she’d be doing this well. And to be clear, I think it’s important not to get carried away. A good mantra in politics is that things are never as bleak as they seem at the low moments, nor as rosy as they seem at the high ones. 

Harris has made up ground in the polls so quickly and dramatically it’s easy to overlook the fact that the race is still super close. In addition, Republicans almost certainly still enjoy an electoral college advantage, because of the geographic distribution of voters, meaning Donald Trump could once again (i.e., like he did in 2016) get more electoral votes even if he loses the popular vote. 

And that’s assuming the polls are correct. The movement in Harris’ direction is unambiguous. But it’s always possible that polls are systematically undercounting Trump voters. Plus Election Day is more than two months away. Anything can happen, as this topsy-turvy campaign has shown already.

Those caveats aside, a Harris victory absolutely feels possible, and maybe even more likely than not. (Nate Silver’s model has her a 53.5% favorite as of this writing.)

But then what? How would she govern?

That question has gotten a lot of attention over the past week, with critics saying she hasn’t done enough to articulate a policy vision. 

I tend to be a little more forgiving, at least for now. Campaigns typically spend months planning and then rolling out a new agenda. She’s been at this for just four weeks, with a running mate to pick and a convention to plan.

Harris does owe the public some more details about how she’d govern, and it’d probably help her own cause too -- not just as a candidate, but as a president should she win. 

She’s running as a quasi-incumbent, with an agenda that’s going to look a lot like what Biden had already proposed in his budgets and policy speeches. But she is bound to have some differences, whether over specific positions or what to do when.

Making some of those clear now could help set priorities if she gets the kind of opportunity to govern (i.e., with a willing Congress) the past three presidents have had when they took office.

Harris did give an economic speech on Friday, with aides suggesting more to come. In the meantime, we can take some educated guesses about what she’d do, or at least what causes she’d emphasize.

Which brings me to some of my recent writing.

A few weeks ago, I took a closer look at Harris’ record on immigration -- an issue sure to get lots of attention in the campaign, because it’s important and on voters’ minds, and because Republicans think it’s a huge vulnerability for her. 

They may be right on that. Polls show it’s the issue on which Democrats do worst and Harris has taken a lot of criticism for her role as “border czar.” But are these accusations fair? And what can we learn from her record? 

My article goes into that question, with the help of several of the nation’s top immigration analysts. And while I don’t want to spoil the answer, I’ll just say there’s a reason I put “border czar” in quotes. Nobody in the White House ever used that phrase and it doesn't actually describe what she did.

More recently I took a close look at an issue that Harris has always made a priority: caregiving. By that, I mean care for people who need some kind of assistance or support to get through daily life, whether it’s a child, a senior citizen or somebody with a disability or serious medical conditions.

In practical terms, that means everything from straight-up financial support for families with children to subsidized child care and home care to paid leave for new parents or anybody caring for a sick relative. 

That list should sound familiar, and not just because I’ve written about these issues many times before. They are also the biggest piece of unfinished business from Biden’s presidency.

Democrats had hoped to make big investments in all of these when they were putting together legislation called “Build Back Better.” They couldn’t get the votes, and ended up dropping them from what finally became the Inflation Reduction Act.

If Harris wins, I suspect she’d try to enact some version of these. She might even use the opportunity to modify some of the ideas and address some of the criticisms that came up when the proposals were in Congress last time. Which might not be a bad idea.

You can read the articles here:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamala-harris-immigration-border-czar_n_66a25732e4b0af62b424f43b

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamala-harris-paid-leave-child-care_n_66ad4d56e4b0bc1c990d6bcb

If you want more, here’s a deeply reported article about Harris’ likely agenda from the Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein -- one of the smartest, most knowledgeable writers in politics. I.e., he knows what he’s talking about.

Thanks for reading!