Harris is the favorite – and will get a bump – needs to focus on capitalizing on the opportunity

[Aaron, 7-21-2024, The Washington Post, “The next big 2024 questions, post-Biden,” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/21/campaign-moment/, accessed 7-21-2024, CM]

This is, of course, the big one. Harris is the strong favorite — both because she’s next in line and because that’s the¶ expedient move, both politically and practically.

It would be fraught to bypass the first female and first Black vice president, particularly with Democrats struggling¶ to hold on to their dominance among Black voters. She also has easy access to Biden’s large campaign war chest,¶ which was quickly turned over to her — a huge factor in all this. And after weeks of uncertainty, you can bet¶ Democrats would like to just be done with the top of the ticket.

But not everyone is closing ranks yet; Barack Obama didn’t quickly endorse Harris, for one. Sen. Joe Manchin III (I-¶ W.Va.) is considering rejoining the Democratic Party and running.

And it’s not exactly a no-brainer. Harris is not a popular vice president, and recent polls suggest she doesn’t perform¶ much better against Donald Trump than Biden did. (The Post’s polling average shows her trailing by 1.5 points in¶ polls conducted after the debate, compared to Biden’s 1.9-point deficit.) Her own 2020 campaign was a¶ disappointment.

I’m not getting the sense that too many in the party want to throw things open yet. But if they ultimately decide to —¶ or if Harris falters — here’s my full list of plausible alternatives. Many of those same names will be in the mix for vice¶ president, should the path remain clear for Harris, or as someone else’s running mate, if it doesn’t.¶ What is the process?

Harris signaled Sunday that she intends to “earn and win” the Democratic nomination. Exactly what it will mean to¶ “earn” it, we don’t yet know.

Ultimately, this will be up to Democratic National Convention delegates, who are no longer bound to Biden or any¶ other candidate. But Democrats need to figure out what kind of process they’ll use to get to that point.¶ They have a dilemma on this front. There is little time to figure things out — their convention begins Aug. 19 — but¶ clearing the field for Harris risks looking like a coronation. And if she is just handed the nomination, it won’t do¶ much to tamp down concerns about her prospects. Some, like Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-¶ Tex.), are withholding support from Harris in favor of a brief contest of some sort.

For now, the big questions are whether they will hold some kind of “mini primary”— and how that would even look¶ — along with precisely when the ticket will be formalized. Party leaders have spent weeks saying they needed to¶ virtually nominate Biden by Aug. 7 because of supposed uncertainty about ballot access. But some in the party had¶ dismissed that as a pretext to jam Biden through.

Sticking to that accelerated timeline would surely cut down on how robust the process is. And to the extent delegates¶ actually have a choice, debating the nominee virtually rather than in person is far from an ideal setup.¶ How does Harris play in the days to come?

Just as we all watched the polls like hawks after Biden’s stumbling June 27 debate performance, so too will our gazes¶ be fixed upon them in the days ahead. They will go a long way toward determining how confident Democrats will feel¶ about Harris.

Yes, she polls little better than Biden right now, and yes, her 2020 campaign didn’t go well. But vice presidents’¶ brands are often tied to the presidents they serve, and she now has a chance to reintroduce herself to a lot of people¶ who didn’t pay much attention to her before. A Democratic optimist might also point out that running a primary¶ campaign isn’t quite the same thing as appealing to general-election voters.

It’s plausible she gets a bump soon. Virtually every Democratic Senate candidate in the country has polled better¶ than Biden, and often significantly better. That might suggest that a standard-issue presidential nominee without¶ Biden’s age and acuity concerns might do better than him when the choice comes into focus.¶ Harris’s biggest task now is capitalizing on this massive opportunity.