The NPR Politics Podcast - What Kamala Harris, 59, Brings To The Reelection Effort

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

Vice President Harris was known as a middling campaigner during the 2020 presidential primary, but she's since come into her own as a capable messenger on reproductive and abortion rights as well as other issues important to young voters. Voters are also weighing whether she would be an effective president if Biden, now 81, can no longer serve.This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Asma Khalid, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.Our producers are Jeongyoon Han, Casey Morell & Kelli Wessinger. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Hi, this is Dave from Long Beach, and I'm currently running the LA Marathon listening to NPR Plus podcast. This podcast was recorded at... 108 p.m. on Monday, March 18th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this podcast, but I will have completed my first marathon.

All right, enjoy the show. I think that counts as a super listener. Yeah. Not only listening to the podcast while running a marathon, but listening to plus content. Special shout out to you, sir. Hope you PR'd in that race. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis.

I cover politics. And I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And today we're going to talk about Vice President Kamala Harris and what exactly she's doing on the campaign trail and how she's doing it. Asma, this is something you've been reporting on. So how exactly is Harris embracing that role? You know, I think of her as having kind of three roles this campaign season. One, she's doing what I think many vice presidents do, which is that she is the chief campaign surrogate.

She travels the country for a president who has a day job. The other thing, though, that she's doing is she is explicitly going out to court young voters, voters of color and women. But then I think the other third job she has, which I think is very distinct to Kamala Harris, who she is running alongside an 81-year-old president, is, you know, trying to show that she is competent to take the lead and possibly the top job if that ever arose. Can you talk about the vibe with her on the campaign trail? Because I think that Harris is someone that has been caricatured in a lot of ways by the right. But I also think this way about Joe Biden. Like he doesn't always speechify great, but people say in retail he works a rope line.

He's great in a room with people. What is she like when she's out on the trail in sort of real-time situation? Yeah. You know, I do think that there is quite a disconnect between the way that Kamala Harris is perceived, sometimes caricatured, and how she is actually perceived in the room by the people who have come to hear her speak. And I noticed this some months ago. I will say I particularly noticed this, I think, in the run-up to the midterms when she really took the lead in talking about reproductive rights, abortion. This is an issue where she could speak very comfortably in a way that candidly President Biden at times has seemed rather uncomfortable diving deep into the issue of abortion, doesn't often use the word abortion.

And, you know, she's often speaking, I would say, to friendly audiences. But nonetheless, these are audiences that want her and want her on the ticket. I mean, one of the things that I think is really interesting is this belief that she specifically has a demographic appeal. I heard this again and again from Biden supporters, from the Biden campaign. And, you know, you don't really see it always in polling because, frankly, both Harris and Biden have pretty low approval ratings. But there was this one survey that the New York Times-Siena poll did last fall. And in it, it found that I think 11 percent of Harris's would-be supporters do not back President Biden. And two-thirds of them were non-white or younger than 30.

So that she was bringing support in for Biden that wouldn't otherwise be there, in other words. That is what that survey showed. And one thing that I did hear from another pollster is this idea that she tends to be popular amongst the so-called super voters, the activists of the Democratic Party. And you do need those folks to show up engaged to try to get their friends and supporters out. But those are people who are going to vote anyway, we assume, for Biden. In theory, yes. But keeping their energy up is important. I wanted to ask you about something you said about her third task, which is she's running with an 81-year-old president and she has to show she's competent.

It strikes me that that's a double-edged sword because Republicans are using the fact that he's 81 to say he won't finish his term. And polls show that big numbers of Americans don't believe he'll finish his second term if he wins one. And therefore, she's the real nominee and she's going to be president. And because she is unpopular with the broader electorate, you know, they're using that as a reason to vote against them. I think that it is inevitably the question Democrats have to answer, frankly, whether or not they want to, the same way they have to answer the Joe Biden age question. Like, there is no way of avoiding that when you are the oldest president in American history now running for reelection. The way she does it, I think, is interesting. And there is some degree of skepticism that I think will continue to persist

amongst a broad swath, let's say, of the Republican Party for her. But one thing that... Even more than Republicans. I mean, polls show if her approval ratings are in the 30s, that means they're Democrats and independents who also don't want to vote for her. No doubt. no doubt. But I would argue there is no way you can avoid trying to tackle this question when you are running for re-election. Like, it is the big elephant in the room that you have to deal with because the flip side of the age question is the Kamala Harris competency question. You cannot run away from it. And one thing that former Mike Pence aide told me, Devin O'Malley, was that VPs don't have a lot from a statutory perspective of duties, roles, and responsibilities policy-wise. They're just like the super fan of the president.

They don't have any role. They cast tie-breaking votes in the Senate. That's about it. So it's a very high-profile job, but with somewhat limiting power, right? And so he said, the way that you often show your competency is how you communicate through your words. And if you look at Harris in that regards, his view, like many Republicans, like many folks view, is that she is somebody who has stumbled over her words, sometimes has been accused of creating kind of word salad. And so this is something that I think a lot of folks are going to pay attention to. And the way she does this is in how she communicates. That being said, I have followed her for a long time. I do think

that the way she is perceived and the extensiveness of her communication is very different than year one of this vice presidency. But Mara, isn't there something fascinating to me about Kamala Harris in this moment because of the age question of Biden, as you mentioned, how people think he might not finish a second term. But also, if Biden were to win, she is also positioning herself as potentially being a frontrunner for the 2028 nomination. She's young. She has that ambition. She ran for president before. Her competency on the trail matters not just for Biden, but for her own future political

ambition. Absolutely. Just like every other ambitious surrogate is also trying to do the same thing, whether it's Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer or Pritzker. 2028 is a very live contest because of how old Joe Biden is. And we know there's going to be a generational shift among Democrats. And Joe Biden has even said, I'm a transitional figure while he was standing in front of some of the people I just mentioned.

So, yes, I think that vice presidents always become the front runner for the nomination. So if she gets another term, I think she will be considered that. But I think there's going to be a really vigorous contest for the next Democratic nominee. You know, but the real question is what happens even sooner this year, even next year. But what Sue was asking is she's got that in mind. And for her to be in front of all of these Democratic base audiences, that's the Democratic primary electorate. Sure. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll talk more about people, people of color. How is that bearing out in practice? And does she have an advantage in thinking, particularly with young people who

seem very down, that Joe Biden does not? I mean, I think you can just look at where she goes and who she's talking to. And there's no doubt to me that that is specifically her target mission, right? You look at last week, she is believed to have been the first president or vice president to visit an abortion clinic with a trip she took to Minnesota. The administration says that she has held some 80 events around reproductive rights since Roe versus Wade was overturned. And then you look at what's happening this coming weekend. She's going to go to Parkland, which was the scene of this mass shooting back in 2018. You know, and gun violence, as we know, is a huge issue for young voters.

I think there's kind of an intersection of concerns that young voters have. Obviously, abortion is a huge issue for them as well. I spoke to Minnie Timuraju about this all. She's the president of the group Reproductive Freedom for All. But basically, she said she's been a champion of these issues for a long time. And I look, you know, she's much more authentic and persuasive on this issue than anyone else in the administration. And I do think that this is an issue, you know, when I say that the vice president seems to be more comfortable engaging on policy issues, I think, than even what we saw in year one or year 1.5. It is because she's engaging on an issue where she can really take the lead more so than the president. I also don't think that we can overstate, Mara,

how much Democrats believe that abortion is still an issue that is being litigated by the electorate and has so far been to their advantage. There's no doubt about that. Every single election, when abortion rights have been on the ballot, the abortion rights side has won. And a lot of these are statewide referendums, no chance for gerrymandering or minority rule. So including in deep red states like Kansas, abortion rights won. The IVF decision in the Alabama State Supreme Court kept this issue alive, and it's going to keep on going because every Republican is going to be asked the question, do you believe life begins at conception, like you've said many times before? One of the things I'm going to be curious to watch about Harris is how and where she campaigns, specifically down the ballot. I mean, normally you see these campaign events when they're going, the overlap of Pennsylvania,

Arizona, Georgia, places with Senate races or House races. And when I talk to Democrats on the Hill, you don't get a sense that they're very eager to have Joe Biden standing next to them because he's so unpopular. But someone like Kamala Harris in certain suburban areas with women, the abortion issue, like she might be able to cut through in a way that Joe Biden can. Or maybe she can. I don't know. What about swing districts? She is very unpopular. So I don't know the answer to that. I will say that in certain key battleground states, if you think of a place like Arizona, Nevada, you've seen her take a number of trips to Nevada. Nevada is a state Democrats are very eager to win, and it has a much more diverse population than the blue wall, you know, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. And so

that is a state where you may see her more actively campaign. But, you know, I think it's about trying to target specific parts of the Democratic base. I think that what was really interesting to me about Harris is this disconnect between how she seems to resonate very well, frankly, in the room with key demographics of the Democratic base, that they need to show up in big numbers. But as you say, she's not popular with a general broad electorate. And so what do you do with that? Do you kind of micro-target and hold smaller events? I mean, do you specifically have her out talking to key demographics? I think that's what they've been trying to do. But, you know, to go back to young voters, one thing we didn't even touch on is the fact that many young voters seem to be upset with how this administration is handling the war in Gaza. And that is popping

up in some of her events. You know, she tried to hold this reproductive rights tour stop in California, and it was interrupted multiple times by calls for a ceasefire. And so how she navigates that, I think, will also be very important to watch. You're saying she has real demographic appeal, but not necessarily geographic. I think it depends on where. I mean, she's from California. It's not like her home state is very necessary. I think it depends on where, because if you think that Arizona and Nevada, which I would argue are very important states in this general election cycle, I would argue that there are parts of

Arizona and Nevada that are very important to mobilize that are very demographically diverse. It's also interesting to me because I do feel like Kamala Harris rents space in the heads of a lot of Republicans, I think including Donald Trump. And I do wonder to the extent her on the ticket for Joe Biden is weighing into his decision to pick a vice president. Some members of the Republican Party have been very interested in more diversity at the top. We've talked before, could Nikki Haley be the vice president? Look at his top picks.

Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, and then there are a bunch of other women also on that list. I wouldn't be surprised if he picks a woman and or a person of color. Yeah, there's sort of a pressure to create the alternative universe, right? And I do think that Donald Trump, of all people, is aware of that kind of appeal that someone with a more diverse background might bring to a ticket. Yeah. All right. Well, let's leave it there for today. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.