In most presidential elections, voters don’t spend a whole lot of time sizing up the nominee’s running mate. Their selection on Election Day is based on who is at the top of the ticket, not who is in the wings.
The 2020 election may be different.
There is a good chance that the next vice president could also be the future president. If Donald Trump wins re-election, it would set up Mike Pence well for the 2024 GOP nomination after serving two terms as the sane and calming counterbalance to the erratic Trump.
The focus on the vice presidency is even more keen on the Democratic side, given Joe Biden’s age and his unwillingness so far to say, if he is elected in November, whether he would seek a second term, when he will be in his 80s.
Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris as his running mate, besides being historic, makes a lot of sense.
In an election that will pit two white septuagenarians, Biden needed someone younger and who better reflects the increasingly diverse makeup of Democratic voters. Blocs of the Democratic base will get energized about her in ways they might not have about Biden.
Harris’ career background is also a plus — a former prosecutor, former state attorney general and current U.S. senator. At a time when Democrats are being accused of being soft on crime and enabling the looters and rioters that have descended on some of the nation’s major cities, it helps to have someone with law enforcement credentials on her resume, even if Harris tends to be more open to reforming the criminal justice system than most prosecutors usually are.
As a Black woman with East Asian parentage as well, Harris may be able to navigate better than most that delicate line between supporting the police while also being sensitive to the complaints of minorities who feel more threatened than protected by officers.
There was a lot of pressure on Biden to pick a Black running mate, and for good reason. His candidacy was almost dead earlier this year before Black support, including some key endorsements from influential Black leaders, revived it and catapulted him within days to the top. He owed Black voters a significant acknowledgment for the role they played. There was nothing he could do more tangibly than pick a running mate like Harris.
The main hiccup Harris faced was that, as a onetime challenger for the Democratic nomination, she handed Biden one of his more uncomfortable moments. During an early debate last year, she challenged him on his past racial stands, including his opposition during the 1970s and 1980s to busing as a means to integrate public schools. The attack set Biden back and almost helped derail his candidacy.
It says something about Biden’s ego — or perhaps a refreshing lack of it — that he was able to put that unpleasant memory aside and realize that his odds of winning will be helped by Harris running alongside him. He also knows that based on her own feisty performance during the Democratic nomination battle, she should be able to hold her own against Mike Pence or whatever tweet storms the president sends her way.
That’s not to say that Harris is a slam-dunk asset for the Biden campaign. It is notable that she is the first Black woman to be on the presidential ticket of a major party, but those who look at her as a possible future president may still be hung up on her race and gender. She will take plenty of knocks from Republicans for being too liberal on abortion, gun control and immigration, while those from the left wing of the Democratic Party may say she is not liberal enough.
All in all, though, the choice of Harris checks a lot of the boxes Biden needed to check.
