Elections DA Link Supplement - GDI 2024

Elections – Harris Good DA Supplement – GDI2024
Harris Elections DA Neg
1NC Shell
Trump Bad/Harris Good – 1NC Shell
A. Uniqueness and link – Harris will win now – momentum and focus on strong Dem success agenda key to victory
Rubin, Washington Post politics opinion columnist, 7-21-24
[Jennifer, 7/21/2024, The Washington Post, “How a Harris presidential campaign would transform the race”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/21/kamala-harris-campaign-2024-biden/?utm_campaign=wp_for_you&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_personalizedforyou&utm_content=readinghistory__position4, accessed 7/21/2024, LR]
So let’s assume that Harris would head the ticket. What then? She could make this a very different race in multiple ways.
First, the 59-year-old, fit, energetic Harris would shed the party’s burdens of Biden’s age and health. Nearly 20 years younger than Trump (who would be 82 at the end of a second term), she would finally move the country past the baby boomer generation and embody a fresh, younger generation of Americans. Without Biden attracting questions about his physical and mental fitness, perhaps the media might finally focus on Trump’s unhinged rants, compulsive lying and utter lack of policy knowledge.
Second, instead of a referendum on Biden personally, Harris would shift the campaign to being about making a choice: between the Biden administration’s successful, economically productive, forward-looking, inclusive record, and the scary, paranoid and authoritarian vision set out in Trump speeches and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which might guide a second Trump administration. Harris could ask whether Americans want:
Technical experts in the departments and agencies who have served under presidents of both parties undertaking research, making rules and enforcing regulations on everything from safe drugs to securities law to clean air and water or a government in which 50,000 handpicked loyalists, not hired for expertise but for fidelity to Trump (taking a loyalty oath to him) make critical life-and-death decisions?
Strong democratic alliances that provide support in defending U.S. national interests against tyrannical aggressors or someone who will prostrate himself before Vladimir Putin and other dictators, abandon Ukraine and leave Taiwan possibly to fend for itself?
An independent Federal Reserve that has the dual mandate to preserve full employment and keep inflation low or, as Project 2025 envisions, a central bank subject to the whims of politicians and shorn of its role as a “lender of last resort”?
A government that protects access to reproductive health care, does not discriminate against LGBTQ+ Americans (or any other discrete group) and aggressively enforces voting rights or one that wants to go beyond the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, take the abortion drug mifepristone off the shelves, literally write out of all laws and regulations terms such as “gender” and “abortion," and infuse government policy with a Christian, male-dominated vision of the family?
Third, Harris is far more articulate and succinct than Biden, as she demonstrated in dissecting the Trump agenda during an appearance in North Carolina on Thursday. In the same vein, the vice president has been a passionate and compelling advocate for reproductive freedom (a topic Biden seems uncomfortable discussing), evidenced in dozens of her speeches and public appearances. She wields her experience as a prosecutor who handled sex crimes to excoriate forced-birth advocates for telling rape and incest victims they “have no right or authority to decide what happens" to their bodies. (She says flatly: “That’s immoral.”)
Fourth, Harris is uniquely capable, given her prosecutorial background and her role on the Senate Judiciary Committee, to run against a radical Supreme Court that is at the lowest level of approval in history. She has the verbal acuity, for example, to denounce the wide grant of criminal immunity to presidents, the evisceration of voting rights and the substitution of a judge’s discretion for experts’ judgments in the administrative state.
Fifth, to the extent that Biden saw erosion in his support among younger voters (including non-White voters), Harris offers the energy to engage and excite them, as seen on her college tours, where she has spoken to standing-room-only crowds on issues that affect their generation in particular (e.g., gun violence, climate change, abortion rights).
And finally, Harris can inherit the mantle of international leadership (having toured the world, met with leaders and represented the U.S. at international conferences) without Biden’s burden of personal criticism, deserved or not, on some hot-button issues, including the war in Gaza. (On Israel, Harris has been a stalwart supporter of the Jewish state, outspoken along with her Jewish husband about the abuse suffered by Israeli women at the hands of Hamas, and yet willing to draw cautionary lines with Israel’s truculent prime minister.)
Yes, it is impossible to gauge how a candidate will fare before she gets into the race. Prospective polls will not tell us definitively whether Harris gains more votes than she loses. But for Democrats despondent about the constant defensive crouch in which they find themselves, she offers excitement, eloquence, effectiveness on key issues and, most of all, the power to turn attention back on Trump’s substantial character flaws, criminal record and disturbing plans for the future.
B. Link – Plan is unpopular
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C. Unpopular moves will send more votes Trump’s way
Sharma, American Moment president, 7-21-24
[Saurabh, 7-21-24, Politico Magazine, “15 Experts Predict What Biden’s Dropout Means for the 2024 Election”, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/21/biden-dropout-expert-predictions-00170164, Accessed 7-21-24, AMH]
I never thought Joe Biden would step down, because everyone who could force him to do so from his staff to the DNC rules committee were heavily incentivized for him to stay at the top of the ticket. The one exception was the donors. It’s no coincidence that Biden’s resignation announcement came the day after FEC records showed a disastrous drop in donations to the Biden campaign, especially compared to President Trump’s.
Democratic donors have an interesting relationship with their own power. Many are uncomfortable with the influence they wield, but still wield it happily. Expect them to call for the Democratic Party to engage in some semblance of Democracy in the coming weeks — while still engineering the result that is most convenient. That result is Harris and an undefined white guy. Either there will be a pro forma contestation at the top of the ticket, or they’ll encourage a more democratic veepstakes to give the ticket more legitimacy.
That process will necessarily highlight the fractures in the Democratic coalition. Expect public fights over Israel and the future of the Dems’ domestic policy agenda. Every unpopular fight in public will send more support Trump-Vance’s way. During the next few weeks, the Trump campaign will iron out its plan to make Harris incompetent and off-putting to the electorate — and they’ll succeed. More importantly they’ll ask the critical question “what did Harris know and when?” when it comes to Biden’s health. There will still be a close election, but this kind of chaos this close to Election Day means Trump is going to win.
D. Trump win bad - reelection risks nuclear escalation – existential threat
Kimball, Arms Control Association Executive Director, ‘24
(Daryl, 2024, Arms Control Association, “Nuclear Dangers and the 2024 Election”, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2024-01/focus/nuclear-dangers-2024-election)
As the new year begins, the existential risks posed by nuclear weapons continue to grow. A crucial factor in whether one or more of today’s nuclear challenges erupt into full-scale crisis, unravel the nonproliferation system, or worse will be the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.
How the winner of the 2024 race will handle the evolving array of nuclear weapons-related challenges is difficult to forecast, but the records and policies of the leading contenders, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, offer clues.
A major responsibility for any commander in chief is to avoid events that can lead to a nuclear war with Russia over its war on Ukraine and with China over its claims to Taiwan. One indicator of Trump’s more confrontational approach came in 2019 when, at a meeting of senior officials from the five nuclear-armed states recognized under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), China proposed a joint statement reiterating that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Two years later, Biden administration officials successfully pressed the group to reaffirm this Reagan-Gorbachev maxim, first enunciated in 1985.
Since then, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale attack on Ukraine and threats of nuclear use have raised the specter of nuclear conflict. To his credit, Biden has not issued nuclear counterthreats and has backed Ukraine in its struggle to repel Russia’s invasion. In 2022, Biden also joined leaders of the Group of 20 states in declaring that the use of nuclear weapons and threats of their use are “inadmissible.”
Well before Putin’s nuclear rhetoric turned ominous, Trump engaged in an alarming exchange of taunts with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in 2017. His threats of unleashing “fire and fury” against Pyongyang fueled tensions on the Korean peninsula and provide another clue how he might behave in a crisis with China, North Korea, or Russia in a second term.
Effective U.S. leadership on arms control will be critical to avoid a destabilizing, three-way arms race after the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expires in 2026. As the treaty’s first expiration deadline of February 5, 2021, was approaching, Trump refused to agree to simple extension of the pact, focusing instead on a failed effort to cajole China into joining Russian-U.S. arms talks. This left the incoming Biden administration only days to reach a deal with the Kremlin to extend the pact by five years, and it did.
In June 2023, the Biden administration proposed talks with Russia “without preconditions” on a new, post-2026 “nuclear arms control framework.” As long as there is war in Ukraine, the best outcome likely is a simple deal committing both sides to stay below the current limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads until a longer-term framework is concluded. Biden also has pursued nuclear risk reduction talks with China, which continues its nuclear buildup begun during the Trump era. In November, senior Chinese and U.S. officials held the first such talks in years.
Meanwhile, Iranian leaders continue increasing their capabilities to produce weapons-grade uranium in response to Trump's 2018 decision to withdraw unilaterally from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and impose tougher U.S. sanctions to pressure Tehran into negotiating a new deal. They now are threatening to pull out of the NPT if the United States or other UN Security Council members snap back international sanctions against Iran.
Biden’s efforts to restore mutual compliance with the 2015 deal have been stymied by Iranian demands on matters outside the nuclear file and tensions over the war in Gaza. Avoiding a more severe crisis over Iran’s nuclear program will require more sophisticated U.S. diplomacy.
Kim has ramped up North Korean nuclear and missile development and stiff-armed overtures for talks with Washington ever since the disastrous 2019 Hanoi summit, when Trump flatly rejected Kim’s offer to dismantle the Yongbyon nuclear complex in return for limited sanctions relief, then walked out of the meeting. Renewed talks on curbing North Korea’s weapons program will require a recalibration of the U.S. approach.
Concerns about a possible nuclear testing revival also are rising. The Trump administration did not help when it declared in 2018 that the United States did not intend to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and in 2020 when senior Trump officials discussed resuming explosive testing to intimidate China and Russia. Biden, on the other hand, has reaffirmed U.S. support for the treaty; and his team proposed technical talks on confidence-building arrangements at the former Chinese, Russian, and U.S. test sites.
Most Americans do not vote based on candidates’ positions on nuclear weapons, but they are aware and deeply concerned about nuclear dangers. A 2023 national opinion survey found that large majorities believe that nuclear weapons are the most likely existential threat to the human race.
In 2024, the candidates’ approaches to these dangers deserve more scrutiny than usual. Presidential leadership may be the most important factor that determines whether the risk of nuclear arms racing, proliferation, and war will rise or fall in the years ahead.
Uniqueness & Internal Links
Harris Will Rally Base
Harris will rally turnout among Dem constituencies
Owermohle & Zhang, STAT Washington Correspondent & Chief Washington Correspondent, 7-21-24
[Sarah & Rachel Cohrs, 7-21-24, STAT, “Harris health care agenda swiftly hailed by progressives and reproductive rights groups”, https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/21/kamala-harris-health-care-agenda-endorsed-by-abortion-rights-gruops-progressives/, accessed: 7-21-24, AngH]
While some progressive biotech entrepreneurs and health care venture capitalists were willing to endorse Harris, others withheld their views. Some health care analysts worried about the uncertainty the upheaval in the presidential race could create.
Harris was the first vice president to visit an abortion provider during her time in office. Unlike Biden, who expressed anti-abortion views as a senator, Harris has been unwavering in her support and grilled Biden during the 2019 primaries about his evolving stance.
Planned Parenthood acknowledged her abortion clinic visit in a statement supporting her candidacy. Harris “has kept the needs and experiences of patients and providers front and center … and we know that she will continue to fight like hell to rebuild a fundamental right that was stripped away, said the group’s president and CEO, Alexis McGill Johnson.
Emily’s List, a nonprofit aimed at electing pro-abortion rights women to office, was also quick to back the vice president. “This election will be fought and won on the issue of reproductive freedom, and Kamala Harris has been a pro-choice champion her entire career,” the group’s president, Jessica Mackler, wrote on X. “She is well-positioned to turn out the voters we’ll need to win this election, especially women, voters of color, and young voters.”
While Republicans, and most notably presidential nominee Trump, embraced the overturning of Roe v. Wade, they have sought to distance themselves from broad abortion bans in recent months. That makes it crucial for Harris to draw a clear distinction for voters in the months before the November election.
“We are fired up and laser-focused on mobilizing voters of color and engaging our communities in support of Vice President Harris, who has shown us time and time again that she will fight for us, our families, and our communities,” said Nourbese Flint, president of the abortion rights group All in Action Fund.
Anti-abortion groups including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America have seized on Harris’ record as a potential liability.
“While Joe Biden has trouble saying the word abortion, Kamala Harris shouts it,” the group’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said in a statement.
Related: Where 3 Democrats who could replace Biden atop the ticket stand on health care
Besides reproductive rights groups, Democratic lawmaker caucuses representing the most progressive and diverse arms of the party were swift to back Harris on Sunday.
The vice president “will mobilize and energize our base,” Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal said in a statement issued within an hour of Biden’s announcement. “At a time when Donald Trump and his Republican Party have stripped away women’s reproductive freedoms, we will respond by electing the first woman to the presidency.”
If elected, Harris would be the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian heritage in the Oval Office.
Leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus also rapidly endorsed Harris. The vice president has been “instrumental” during the Biden presidency in “lowering maternal mortality rates, protecting reproductive freedoms, and ensuring economic opportunities for all,” CBC Chairman Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) and the caucus PAC chairman Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said in a release.
Jerome Adams, the surgeon general under Trump who made maternal health one of his focuses, told STAT, “If the Democratic nominee ends up being Harris, she has a unique opportunity as a Black woman to highlight the issue of maternal mortality.”
Harris is well-positioned to take over Biden’s campaign – appeals to Democrats due because Biden agenda, without the baggage
Mueller, ‘The Hill’ staff writer, 7-21-24
[Julia Mueller, ‘The Hill’ staff writer, 7-21-24, “Harris vs. Trump: What the polls tell us,” https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4785009-kamala-harris-polls-donald-trump/, 7-21-24, EP]
Harris is also “the easiest one” among the prominent Democrats being floated for the hypothetical nominee to slide into Biden’s place, given the mechanics of the process, Tranter said.
She’s best positioned to take over Biden’s campaign apparatus and Democratic National Committee (DNC) fundraising system without excessive legal entanglements, strategists have noted, and her agenda is already obviously aligned with Biden’s.
The vice president is also 59, more than 20 years younger than Biden, as well as a Black woman — attributes that could appeal to key demographics within the Democratic base.
“When you have a young Black woman on the ticket in place of Joe Biden, it really eliminates a lot of the arguments that Republicans are going to use against [Biden],” said Democratic strategist Michael Starr Hopkins. “She has the ability to run on all the positives of his record without health being the main focus.”
Harris Will Win Now – Polls
Harris win possible – polls suggest close race
Dobkin, Newsweek reporter, 7-21-24
[Rachel, 7/21/2024, Newsweek, “Democrats' Strongest Candidate Against Donald Trump, According to Polls”, https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-kamala-harris-2024-election-democrats-polls-1928185, accessed 7/21/2024, LR]
After President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race on Sunday afternoon, he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who, according to recent polling data, is the strongest candidate to take on former President Donald Trump.
Biden announced his exit from the race in a letter to the American public posted on social media on Sunday following weeks of fighting between Democrats who wanted Biden to step down and those who thought he was the best choice for the party after his disastrous debate performance against Trump late last month.
With Biden out of the race, the Democratic Party must work fast to secure a new nominee by August 7. The Democratic National Convention (DNC) where the party's nominee is named will take place in Chicago from August 19 to 22.
After the debate, polls started to give respondents other options than Biden for the Democratic nominee and asked them about hypothetical match-ups between those potential nominees and Trump. Harris has proven, so far, to be the best candidate to go up against Trump, except for the wild card, former first lady Michelle Obama. Not enough polling on Obama has been released to tell how she would fare against Trump, but she beat him in one recent poll.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump's campaign and Harris' press secretary via email for comment on Sunday e

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