WASHINGTON — Kamala Harris, the vice president, was featured heavily in a video President Biden used Tuesday to announce his 2024 campaign, sending a strong signal that she will be a central part of his re-election efforts.
Somehow, both her harshest critics and her staunchest allies see this as a good thing.
To her supporters, Ms. Harris, 58, represents broad segments of the US electorate that Mr. Biden does not represent: She’s female, she’s biracial, and she’s decades younger than the 80-year-old president, who would be 86. at the end of a second term. She is seen as the government’s most visible advocate on issues such as voting rights, access to abortion and the fight against climate change.
But her detractors — including both Republicans and Democrats — say she is unprepared for the scrutiny that is sure to come her way as she positions herself as the potential heir to a Biden presidency. And some don’t think the issues in her portfolio will appeal to the independent and moderate voters who tend to decide presidential elections.
“What swing voter wakes up and says, ‘Boy, Kamala Harris is going to move me?'” said Mike Murphy, a political strategist who served as an adviser to Republican senator and presidential candidate John McCain for many years.
Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris are still betting that the case they bring for America — that their administration represents the protection of civil liberties and the return of stable governance — will have broad appeal. Hours after Mr. Biden announced his re-election bid on Tuesday, Ms. Harris took part in events designed to showcase her as the president’s envoy, but also show the ways their roles will differ on the campaign trail.
On Tuesday afternoon, she appeared at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is in Washington this week for a state visit. There, the two promoted joint projects between the South Korean and US governments and said they would work together to monitor the threat of climate change.
Later in the evening, the vice president previewed a fiery and polished campaign style when she attended an event promoting abortion rights, an issue likely to shape the 2024 race that Republicans are struggling to find a unified platform for. to build.
She spent her first night on the trail visiting Howard University, a historically black college and her alma mater, to participate in a rally co-hosted by Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America. Howard students chanted “Four More Years” and gave Ms. Harris a standing ovation as she took the stage.
“We live, I believe, in a time when so many of our hard-won freedoms are under attack,” Ms Harris said. “And this is a time for us to stand up and fight.”
She criticized the Supreme Court for adopting a constitutional right “from the women of America” and attacked “extremist” Republicans across the country for passing restrictive abortion laws, including laws banning the procedure in cases of rape and incest —” obviously most of them don’t even know how a woman’s body works,” she remarked at one point.
“Imoral, outrageous, that people who dare to walk around and expect you to respect and single them out, do things like this to other people and rob them of their right to dignity and autonomy,” Ms Harris said. .
A greater number of appearances by Ms. Harris will mean conservative media outlets like Fox News will have more opportunities to scrutinize everything from the content of her comments to her body language, a practice the vice president’s allies say is rooted in sexism and racism. .
Some conservative critics have tried to argue that a vote for Mr. Biden is really a vote for President Harris. On Tuesday, a Republican National Committee campaign ad pitted an image of the president and vice president against artificially generated doomsday scenarios.
“Republicans will certainly try to make the race about her as much as possible because they see her as more vulnerable and unpopular,” Tim Miller, a political strategist and communications director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign, said in an interview. But like Mr. Biden, Ms. Harris has low ratings: A recent poll found that 36 percent of Americans think she is doing well.
“I think she will play a more important role than another VP in a different situation,” added Mr. Miller.
Ms. Harris entered the Biden administration with an undefined portfolio, stepping into one of the most difficult roles in American politics. She has spent the past two years trying to establish her legacy amid frequent staff turnover and thorny assignments, including addressing the root cause of migration from Central America to the United States. During the early months of his presidency, Mr. Biden called her a “work in progress,” according to Chris Whipple, who wrote a book about Biden’s presidency.
Several current and former aides said she was starting to find her footing when she asked to become the government’s leader on voting rights — only to remain the public face of the issue as legislative efforts to limit access to ballots to expand in Congress died.
In recent months, she has established herself as an advocate for police reform and as a standard-bearer for the administration on abortion rights since Roe v. Wade, which established a constitutional right to abortion, was overturned by the Supreme Court last summer.
In recent weeks, Ms. Harris has also traveled to help support Mr Biden’s calls for tighter gun control measures amid a series of mass shootings. In early April, she made a last-minute trip to Nashville to meet with state representatives Justin J. Pearson and Justin Jones, two Democratic lawmakers who were evicted for protesting gun control on the Tennessee House floor and later reinstated. She also met with the two legislators, who are black, along with the president in Washington this week.
“There’s an agenda,” Mrs. Harris told Howard. “They even went so far as to turn off the microphones of two young elected leaders in Nashville because they couldn’t even stand it. They couldn’t even handle it, those people who want to call themselves leaders.”
Ms. Harris’ supporters say they see huge potential for the vice president to cement her reputation and further define her legacy as campaign season approaches. Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis of California, who visited Ms. Harris in Washington last week, said the vice president had grown into her role. She added that Ms. Harris could show more of her skills on the campaign trail this time than she did in 2020, during the height of the pandemic.
“Especially with the younger climate activist leaders in the room, and especially with people of color, she is an inspiring champion,” said Ms. Kounalakis. “Connecting with real people on the campaign trail is very natural to her, and where she really thrives.”
