Kamala Harris has launched her campaign for the White House, after President Joe Biden stepped aside Sunday under pressure from party leaders.
The vice president has Biden’s endorsement, and is unchallenged as yet for the Democratic nomination, which will be formally decided at the Aug. 19 convention in Chicago.
“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said in a statement. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda. We have 107 days until Election Day. Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.”
In her statement, the vice president paid tribute to Biden’s “extraordinary leadership,” saying he had achieved more in one term than many presidents do in two.
Kamala/AOC ticket could win it I think
The American public isn’t yet ready for AOC in executive office, as great a she would be. Her time is yet to come.
Yeah I don’t totally disagree there… This would be a great time to force it though… If it was someone like Romney rather than Trump then a lot of centrist Dem/Reps would probably shift to him, but with Trump, I don’t think they’ll do that, at least not enough to matter… They’ll take anyone other than Trump. So AOC doesn’t cost us all that many votes from the center (under these particular circumstances) but she WOULD bring in millions of young progressive votes that will probably just stay home or vote 3rd party if there’s no progressive for them to vote for.
True, but there’s also a VERY loud dissent against her on the right, which they would be happy to run with in their ads up to the election. The right - and the sponsors behind them (Russia, chiefly) - ate experts at loudly dispersing disinformation with their rhetoric (see: anti-vaxers, everything about trump, etc), and having AOC in the spotlight would give them a lot of ammo in the form of ThE rAdIcAl LiBeRaLs “talking over the executive office” etc. I just don’t trust that the milquetoast voting public wouldn’t buy into that loud rhetoric enough to not siphon more votes than they would gain. Unless that’s too pessimistic of me?
People need to stop reflexively posturing defensively.
The right is a known quantity at this point. They aren’t growing their support by any significant margin. The reason they’re a threat is because Dems keep choosing candidates that don’t inspire turnout.
AOC, were she to get maneuvered into a political position where she had some institutional support to a presidential shot, absolutely would drive turn out. I’d imagine in similar levels to Obama.
People on the left need to stop worrying themselves with what the right thinks of how the Dem party is run or how the right would respond to a candidate. Flinching and hesitating because of what the right might think is how Dems lose elections.
That’s a really good point. Perhaps I am thinking too defensively. If someone as progressively strong as her does run, it will give them the excuse to ramp up their attacks on her, but also ramp up our attacks on them.
Nailed it
Just to clarify I meant AOC as running mate to Kamala… In case that wasn’t clear. However, I think the more the magas run their bs the more the left will recognize whoever they’re attacking as legitimate. I don’t know why people worry what the right is going to say. They’re going to spread their crap anyway. The young progressive left is larger than the center left at this point… Give them someone worth showing up for and they will, and then it won’t matter what the Republicans do. Especially with Trump as the nominee… No one is moving blue to red while he’s running… Maybe fewer centrist reds will move to blue but the young progressives will far outnumber whatever reds decide Trump is better than Kamala/AOC
Really? I don’t think AOC has a chance in hell among the voting public.
No one who was going to vote for Biden is about to vote for Trump just because Kamala is a black woman… Stop worrying what the Republicans are going to think… They were going to think that about any “lib”, and it doesn’t matter because they were never going to vote for a Dem. The only people we need to worry about are the young progressives who still have no one to vote FOR and might stay home because of it… Throw AOC on the ticket and a lot of them will get excited enough to show up.
I think they’ll err on the side of appeasing people who are on some level uncomfortable with minorities and women and run some generic straight white man.
I know Biden is Free after January, and he has experience being vice president.
Yep probably… But that’s the wrong move… Those people aren’t about to switch to Trump just because they’re uncomfortable with a black woman… Trump is just too much of a Trump you know? Like if it was Romney running as R… Then yeah, but Trump is different. The people who “always vote” are going to vote blue no matter who… It’s the young progressives that need to be swayed to vote at all. And there are significantly more young people who could be swayed to show up than there are centrists who might switch to Trump instead of a black woman.
AOC would be a good VP or Speaker pick, but for president I think we’d need someone with more broad appeal.
I think Mark Kelly or Newsom would be able to capture enough votes.
Honestly I think a Newsom/AOC ticket would do even better than Kamala/AOC… Just have to have someone actually progressive on there to get the young progressive left excited enough to show up