![]() ![]() Still though, the selection of a running mate is far from a trivial choice. ![]() While Democrats hope the Biden-Harris ticket has what it takes to win over the majority of electoral college votes, history shows that VP choice doesn’t necessarily make or break a campaign. How important is a vice-presidential pick? However, the Obama coalition only managed to bring a Pyrrhic victory to Hillary Clinton, as such discrepancy in popular votes wasn’t enough to push her across the 270 electoral college votes needed for victory. As a woman of minority background, she is a perfect embodiment of the party’s future and the much touted Obama coalition, which was almost 3 million votes stronger in the 2016 elections. While it is abundantly clear that she is ideologically diametrically opposite to Donald Trump and his vice president, Mike Pence, her personal history and background further emphasise the difference between the two presidential tickets. ![]() Similar to Biden, she is a reformist rather than a revolutionary. Over time, her politics has grown more progressive, in lockstep with the party’s ideological consensus. From her years as the district attorney of San Francisco and then the attorney general of California, to her more recent experience in the Senate, Harris was already considered a rising star of the Democratic Party’s establishment. The fact that Harris ultimately prevailed as his vice-presidential pick supports both of these points. Yet now, in comparison with past vice-presidential hopefuls Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin, Harris has the greatest chance to become the first female vice president of the United States, and even its first female president should Joe Biden keep his word about being a transition candidate, ushering in the new generation of Democratic politicians.īiden’s presidential bid can be reduced to two main principles – minimising risk and making a case that he is Trump’s true antipode. Harris pulled out of the race in December 2019 without having competed in a single primary. By the end of 2019, it was perfectly clear that she had run out of funds to proceed with the campaign, and there were also some ominous reports about her campaign essentially imploding as a result of poor management. This is basically what happened to the senator from California who, despite having a solid start in the campaign, never managed to widen her appeal, while the field of contenders kept on expanding to record levels in the recent party history. Instant political stars are born and destroyed – one week you might have a great debate performance, and the next week you are just yesterday’s news because there is always someone else with a viral soundbite who will go on to dominate the media cycle, taking the voters’ support with them. Harris’ rise and fall in the lead up to the party primaries is emblematic of a trend in the marathon-long US primary campaigns. Her star was ascendant after the first debate, during which she sparred with and emerged victorious from a duel with the man who would end up winning the Democratic Party’s nomination and ultimately offer her to become his running mate. ![]() Just over a year ago, when the Democratic primaries campaign began to ramp up with the first TV debates, Kamala Harris was one of the darlings of both the media and voters. Kamala Harris, already a rising star of the Democratic establishment, offers a promising glimpse of the party’s future. Joe Biden’s vice-presidential pick may be the most consequential political move in his career. ![]()
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