WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris to be the new Democratic nominee gives Harris, already the first woman and person of color to be vice president, another opportunity to make history.
In a letter announcing his withdrawal, Biden offered his thanks to Harris “for being an extraordinary partner in all this work.” He endorsed her in a separate post on social media that included a photo of the two of them on the White House grounds.
“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made,” he wrote in the post.
Before she was chosen as his running mate, Harris had clashed with Biden during her short-lived 2020 presidential campaign. Biden vowed during that race to pick a woman as his vice presidential candidate, as well as someone with experience and who would be “simpatico with me, both in terms of personality as well as substance,” he said. Earlier in her career, Harris had served as a senator representing California and the state’s attorney general.
In speeches and event appearances, Harris, who has long been seen as the embodiment of a country growing more racially and ethnically diverse, has often nodded to her mother and the generations of women of all races who paved the way for someone like her. Her selection as vice president was also seen as an acknowledgment of the critical role Black women have played in Democratic victories since 2016.
Just this month at the Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans, Harris cut a striking figure, appearing confident and clad in an electric blue suit, as she talked up the administration’s accomplishments on issues such as student debt and Black maternal health and made a case for embracing one’s inner power and ambition, despite not looking like others in the room. “People in your life will tell you, though, it’s not your time. It’s not your turn. Nobody like you has done it before. Don’t you ever listen to that,” she said, adding: “I like to say, ‘I eat no for breakfast.’”
The news of Harris’ potential candidacy electrified the network of organizations and members who have pushed for increasing the ranks of women in politics and have prepared to support her. Harris, they said, had substantial leadership experience and offered to be a powerful voice at a time when democracy and women’s rights are under assault.
“This is a historic opportunity that has the potential for exciting and mobilizing young voters in a way we haven’t seen in a long time,” said Shaunna Thomas, co-founder and executive director of UltraViolet, which focuses on educating voters about digital disinformation. “It would be hard to overstate how meaningful it is in a year when the Republicans are coming for women.”
Christina Reynolds, a spokesperson with the abortion-rights-focused political action committee EMILY’s List, which has spent millions to promote Harris, said she had struggled to break through because vice presidents tend to receive less media attention, and because as a woman and a woman of color, she is subject to criticism based on race and gender that other vice presidents have not faced.
“She gets racist and sexist attacks that are not just about the administration and their work,” she said. But she said EMILY’s List and other organizations had been working to combat that negative attention since they began the online campaign #wehaveherback in the hours after Biden selected her as vice president.
Harris was a constant target last week at the Republican National Convention. In panels and onstage, speakers tied her to an administration that they say has led to increases in crime and inflation. They cast her as an enabler of an aging and ineffective president. They blamed her for record levels of migrant crossings at the border, repeatedly labeling her Biden’s “border czar.”
Attacking Harris served several functions, Republican and Democratic strategists said. Republicans saw her as a possible alternative to lead the Democratic ticket should Biden step aside. And Harris has long been seen as an important figure with the potential to energize the parts of the coalition seen as up for grabs: women, young people and voters of color.
Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney, was elected in 2010 as the first Black woman to serve as California’s attorney general. Her election to the U.S. Senate in 2016 made her only the second Black woman in the chamber’s history.
The daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, Harris became a barrier-breaking pick for vice president at a time when many voters were demanding change and equality for Black people as civil-rights protests rocked the nation after the murder of George Floyd. But her extensive record in law enforcement — formed through the tough-on-crime 1990s — was seen as liability for her among Democrats who were pushing for aggressive criminal justice reforms.
Now, her career as a prosecutor could be advantageous, some Democratic consultants and strategists said.
Anat Shenker-Osorio, a Democratic campaign consultant and messaging researcher who urged the party to elevate Harris even before Biden stepped aside, said a potential matchup between Harris and former President Donald Trump could stir interest among voters who had planned to sit out the race.
“It’s almost Hollywood — who takes on a villain who has been outed as a convicted felon, except for a prosecutor?” she said. “Who takes on this villain who has a string of extraordinarily sexist actions other than a woman? Who takes on this villain who has made racism his day and his night and scapegoating his central premise and promise but a woman of color?”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
