After much excitement about Joe Biden finally stepping aside and Kamala Harris becoming the presidential nominee for the November elections, everything may not be hunky-dory on the Democratic front.
Democrats are quite anxious about Kamala Harris running although they may be very relieved about 81-year-old Joe Biden deciding not to run for a second term.
The concern is Harris’ ability to connect with the white working class and union voters in three swing states; Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
One Democratic senator (whose name was not revealed) said that she won’t have an easy path to victory despite the fact that she has got thousands of people working for her, and she’s got a team of the smartest people, many of whom have worked with her over the years.
“We need to be very clear-eyed, and it’s going to be brutally tough,” said the senator.
Senator Bernie Sanders, who represents Vermont and is well known for his political activism, says that Harris needs to do a lot more to win over blue-collar votes.
“For her to become president, she’s going to have to be talking about issues that impact the 60 percent of Americans, working people who are living paycheck to paycheck,” said Sanders in an interview with The Hill.
Some Democrats even feel that independents like Robert F. Kennedy Jr could end up getting the votes of the majority of the culturally conservative, union-aligned working-class voters in the industrial Midwest.
The other challenge is that with just under a hundred days to go, Harris doesn’t have much time to win over voters in those critical states.
Better than Biden
Another senator who wished to remain anonymous said that Harris is definitely a lot better than Biden despite her flaws.
“Democrats were in a depression. Behind the scenes… almost everyone was pushing hard to say, ‘Gosh Joe, we love you, but go.’ It’s not as if there was a perfect vision of, ‘Oh we have the best candidate in the world [in reserve],” said the senator.
Senator Bob Casey from Pennsylvania said that she has a long road ahead. “Her campaign is not even a week old. There’s an obvious need to be able to get her message out. I think by the end of it she’ll win, but we have a lot of work to do.”
Running mate help
Many Democrats, however, do feel that if Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is chosen as Harris’ running mate, their chances of winning in those three states would improve significantly.
Strengths
The majority of Democrats, however,r do feel Harris has a lot going for her and her strengths are clear.
As a woman running for president, they see her as the best person to deliver the message on reproductive rights, which is a major issue in this election.
They also see her background as attorney-general, her four years in the Senate plus her years as vice president as something that makes her extremely well qualified to run the country.
Economically, her best bet would be to run on Biden’s proven record.