Kamala Harris has embarked on a whirlwind tour ever since receiving the support of Joe Biden for president last week. She has shored up support from throughout the party and recruited thousands of volunteers from across the country. She has stopped all talk of an open convention and will likely be nominated without opposition in a virtual roll call next week. Democrats seem hopeful and believe they have a chance of victory, with a recent poll showing that “nine in ten (88%) Democrats are enthusiastic (63% very and 25% somewhat) about Harris becoming the Democratic nominee.”
But for all this supportive talk, Donald Trump is still the favorite in the 2024 presidential race. Trump has led in polls for months. He is the only person running who has ever been an incumbent. He has better name recognition than Harris and several years as president that many Americans look fondly on. In order to win, Harris will have to refine her message and present the best case possible to appeal to swing voters throughout the country.
Harris will be able to bring these voters in if she minimizes her earlier policy positions and tries to win over skeptical voters in the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt. She can do this by taking an unequivocal stand on three questions that would have likely dogged her 2020 primary campaign.
Should we defund the police?
Kamala Harris was a longtime prosecutor in San Francisco. But as Chesa Boudin learned, simply serving as prosecutor does not give a politician a reputation for being tough on crime. Harris should be open to police reforms during her presidency, but for the moment she needs to argue for the importance of the police in American life and our continued need for some level of policing. Such a position shows she is sensitive to the national crime wave that occurred after 2020 and the fears over crime that animate swing state voters for whatever reason.
Should we ban private insurance?
Medicare for All has animated the Democratic Party for the past decade. In 2019, Harris went even further and proposed that the nation ban private health insurance. Such a position is too far for many swing voters at this time and would only reinforce her leftist reputation. Americans want coverage expanded and cheaper prices, but for now they want this done in a form that resembles the current system. Harris needs to focus on expanding health care and protecting the most vulnerable while also making it clear that she does not want to go as far as she did five years ago.
Should Israel exist?
The behavior and activities of Israel in the past nine months have caused considerable friction within the Democratic Party. Harris has the ability to find a middle ground where she criticizes Israel’s dangerous, violent, and illegal policies but defends its right to exist and the relationship between the United States and Israel. She will be heavily criticized by the left for doing anything other than calling for the abolition of the state of Israel. But such distance from leftist activists is helpful. While they may have hurt Biden, protests during the DNC against Harris will actually aid her cause by showing that she is not beholden to activists or politicians that voters in Arizona or Michigan may disagree with.
Kamala Harris has already begun to take strong positions on the three questions listed above. But sending out a letter or tasking a surrogate with the job of answering them is not enough. She needs to take a bold stance and argue that stance at dozens of rallies over the next hundred days. Harris needs to make clear that she is willing to anger activists in her own party to support her current beliefs. If not, the exercise will do little to convince voters she is a general election candidate and not still stuck in the 2020 primaries.