Editor’s note: Bill Burton is CEO and founder of Bryson Gillette, a national political and communications firm. He previously served as deputy press secretary in the Obama White House and has worked on campaigns at all levels throughout his 25-year career in communications and politics. Opinions expressed here are those of the author. Find more opinion on CNN.
CNN
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If President Joe Biden does not become the Democratic nominee at the convention in August, Vice President Kamala Harris will be the nominee. Democrats who are still scratching their heads over Biden’s debate performance and want someone other than Biden as their 2024 presidential candidate should understand this: Endorsing someone other than Harris would not only be a case of the party missing out on a great vice president, it would be politically devastating for the Democratic nominee.
The work Harris has done to advance the Administration’s economic and national security policies has been symbolic and critical. She has addressed issues that are truly important to the American people, such as support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), maternal and child health, and health disparities. She has been top-notch in her ability to vigorously pursue the Administration’s policies and effectively articulate its positions and the threat posed by Trump’s reelection.
We’ve heard a lot of speculation among progressives and political commentators about choosing a candidate other than Harris from anywhere in the country, but we’ve heard very little about how supporting another candidate could negatively impact the election.
According to the Pew Research Center, African Americans make up about 14% of the U.S. population, but about 20% of those who voted for Biden in 2020 were black. With this year’s election expected to be close, disappointing a vital community within the party by rejecting Harris’ nomination at a critical time is not only contemptible and humiliating, but politically foolish. Literally ignoring the first black vice president, who is in this position for the express reason of being ready to take Biden’s place if necessary, will generate a level of anger and disappointment from the black community and completely disrupt our ability to maintain a coalition of voters that will enable us to defeat Trump.
Consider the specific example of Pennsylvania. In 2020, Biden won the state by 1.2% overall. That was a margin of about 80,000 votes out of a total of about 7 million votes, when Biden had about 90% of black support in the state and 92% nationally. This time around, Biden is trailing Trump by 3 points in Pennsylvania so far, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll from May. That’s within the margin of error, but the poll also found that black voters in Pennsylvania support Biden at 69% in a head-to-head matchup with Trump, a significant drop from 2020. If that figure holds up in the state, it would mean a shortfall of hundreds of thousands of black voters alone, far exceeding the 80,000 margin that Biden won by in 2020.
If you think our candidate currently has issues with the black community, imagine pushing aside the nation’s first black female vice president for the illusion of winning from a clean slate.
Do you think the stigma of Harris campaigning for someone else will win over black voters? Do you think the vice president’s extraordinary disregard for institutions (where the institution is Democratic) will help attract longtime black voters and young black voters?
Imagine that in a hotly contested nomination race, California Governor Gavin Newsom wins the convention selection process and becomes the Democratic presidential nominee. The next step would be for the incumbent Vice President to change his voter registration from California to Washington, DC, under the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, allowing another Californian to run for office. The humiliation of the symbolic act of changing his state registration to accommodate Newsom, combined with the Vice President running for and championing another candidate after being passed over, is offensive and improbable.
And the idea that Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Raphael Warnock of Georgia or Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland would accept their vice president being removed from the running is simply absurd, as they all consider their own political futures.
A new CNN poll conducted by SSRS shows Harris has a shot at winning the presidential election against Trump. 47% of voters surveyed support Trump and 45% support Harris. Democrats could close that 2% gap by backing Harris.
There’s also a logistical problem with this issue: The vice president is in the best position to receive Biden’s campaign contributions because her name is already on the campaign account — no small problem when the timing is so tight.
What’s noteworthy here is that none of the candidates being floated as possible Biden successors, except for Harris, have been nationally vetted — none of them have been vetted at a level that would guarantee any of them would be able to succeed under the direction of Mr. Crigg, our nation’s politics.
There was a time when many Democrats thought our candidate should have been former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, his 2004 vice presidential nominee. More recently, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent supporting “emerging” Republican candidates, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Are we prepared for an unvetted, untested Democratic candidate to fail in the most important election of our lifetimes? I’m not.
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Finally, it’s worth noting that the American people have already had their say on the question of who should replace Biden if that were to happen: Over 81 million Americans voted for Biden and decided that Harris should be in the Oval Office if something were to happen to them.
So if you want to talk about running a candidate to replace the president, fine, but please understand that the only viable option is a Harris nomination. Anything else will destroy our chances before the first balloon drops at the convention.
