Biden Has a Kamala Harris Problem: The African-American vote proved to be a decisive factor behind Joe Biden’s election in 2020.
Throughout the Democratic Party’s primary that election year, Biden struggled to gain any momentum or maintain traction early in the process. It was not until the fateful South Carolina primary when Biden made a herculean stand and was able to secure his place as the Democratic Party’s nominee to be the forty-sixth president.
Biden’s victory in South Carolina was almost exclusively the result of a sizable portion of the state’s African-American population turning out to vote for him over the other Democratic Party candidates that year.
A Deal to Save Himself
Biden had made a deal with his old Senate colleague, James Clyburn, a leader in the African-American community and a civil rights icon.
The deal – at least as alleged by many experts and political watchers – was simple: Clyburn would turn out the African-American vote for Biden in exchange for Biden making critical promises to Clyburn and the African-American Democratic Party members to serve their interests, if elected. Biden made the deal. It seems very likely part of that agreement was that Biden would nominate a female woman of color to be his vice-president.
Enter Kamala Harris.
She was billed as the female Obama. Instead, she was the female John Edwards whose flame was extinguished far sooner than anyone had anticipated. She failed to even make it to her state’s (California) primary. She was such a weak candidate. Harris was saved by Clyburn’s deal with Biden. Had Biden not consented to Clyburn’s deal, Harris would have faded into the political ether much as John Edwards did.
Still, Harris has been lackluster as vice-president. America’s first female of color vice-president has not handled any of her major policy issues well. The border. Space. Ukraine. She’s also proven to be unpopular.
Earlier this year, it was reported that Harris was tasked with reaching out to black male voters with whom Democratic Party strategists are concerned the party is struggling to keep on their side as the 2024 election draws nearer. One can anticipate that this initiative, like everything else Harris has touched, will end miserably both for the vice-president and the Biden Administration. This is especially because Donald Trump was competitive in 2020 with black voters. If Biden cannot keep African-Americans onboard his campaign, and if Trump is the nominee in 2024, then Biden will have serious difficulty making it across the finish line.
Kamala Harris’ Terrible Track Record
Lest we forget, Kamala Harris is responsible for putting scores of young people of color behind bars who were charged with possession of illicit narcotics, when she was the Attorney General of California. Harris is not very popular with minorities because of her harsh law enforcement policies and the fact that she simply cannot connect with voters (as evidenced by her presidential campaign’s massive flop early in the Democratic Party’s 2020 primary).
Given that Biden’s popularity is weak going into the 2024 election, one must question the reasoning for putting her as the leading voice for outreach to the African-American community. Perhaps it is because she is a person of color herself.
Then again, a running theory of mine is that Biden has disliked Harris from the start and has given her a portfolio of poison pills so that she can look bad enough to give Biden an excuse for replacing her as his vice-president in 2024. Failure by Harris to effectively generate support among an increasingly skeptical African-American community might be the push that Biden needs to finally rid himself of her.
Another area of policy that Biden has tasked Harris to do voter outreach to is to women on the issue of abortion. Because of the way early voting was conducted in the Midterm Elections of 2022, many of the votes that Republicans (and most political analysts in the mainstream media) expected to go for the GOP went to the Democratic Party. It was later determined that the reason for this was because early voting took place right around the time that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. That Supreme Court decision brought many votes—especially college-educated, young women—to the polls to vote for the Democrats.
By sending Vice-President Harris into the country to do outreach for women, a key demographic that the Republicans need to remain competitive in national elections (and that they’re losing), the Biden team is hoping that Harris will be able to speak to these voters in a unique way that will ensure they turnout for Biden in 2024. Of course, given her abysmal track record since being made vice-president, one must again wonder how anyone in the Biden campaign could think that she would be effective at this task when Harris has failed at everything else she’s been asked to do.
Kamala Harris is a Surefire Loser for Biden
Biden is going to have a hard enough time eking out enough votes to overcome the Republican nominee in 2024. It is beyond comprehension why anyone in the DNC thinks Kamala Harris is their best bet for winning next year. Again, Biden’s team just might be putting Harris out before the voters now so that she does fall flat, and that warrants her being removed from the ticket. Perhaps Biden could then pick a more dynamic number two, another Californian, possibly Governor Gavin Newsom.
Kamala Harris has been a disaster for the Democrats. I can’t imagine she’ll be in her office much longer. If she is, Republicans have a better shot at taking down Biden in 2024 because she’s a drag on the ticket.
Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who serves as a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive.com. Weichert is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at American Greatness and the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower(Republic Book Publishers), The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (March 28), and Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (May 16). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
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