Democrats rush to Kamala Harris seeking unity above all else - Washington Examiner

Well, that sure was fast. After three weeks of insisting that he was going to drop out of the race, President Joe Biden suddenly dropped out of the race. Many people throughout the media ecosphere, myself included, had speculated that if he were to leave the race, there might be some kind of open process for the party to choose an alternative candidate. The chances of this were always low, but at this point, they seem to be nil. Within 24 hours of Biden’s withdrawal, elite Democrats began lining up behind Vice President Kamala Harris, who as of this writing can claim to be the presumptive nominee. Granted, Biden could make the very same claim right up until the moment he withdrew, but this does seem set in stone.

Why did the Democrats move so hastily toward Harris? And was this a wise decision? While we cannot know for sure why the party elite acted as it did, the speed with which its leadership all moved in the same direction suggests several good reasons. Yet downsides linger.

Democratic leaders seem above all to desire a united front. They want to avoid internal conflicts being exposed to the public and focus the party’s energies on defeating former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party in the November election. Parties always have an incentive for unity. If leadership had its way, there would never be a primary contest anywhere or anytime. The preferred candidate of the party leadership would be anointed, and the party would immediately pivot to the general. Of course, presidential nominations rarely go so smoothly, as many would-be candidates risk challenging the front-runner for the nomination. But after three weeks of the party clawing itself apart, and with just 100 or so days to go until Election Day, the overwhelming majority of Democratic stakeholders are so desperate to end the internal fighting that no major would-be challenger to Harris dared enter the race.

Harris also is generally liked by the party itself. While her favorable ratings with the country at large are quite anemic, regularly clocking in under 40% of the people while she has been vice president, Democrats like her. She is not controversial within the party. There is no anti-Harris faction with an ax to grind. Granted, many Democrats have privately expressed doubts that she can win, but no major group has indicated that a Harris administration would be unacceptable to its interests. That’s a huge advantage.

Moreover, the problems with challenging Harris this late in the game would be steep. Such a candidate would have to build essentially from scratch a campaign organization — first to woo the convention delegates, then to carry the party banner into the general election. Given the massive operation a presidential campaign is nowadays, there is precious little time to put any such organization together, let alone build a good one. And finally, many would-be candidates for president waiting in the Democratic wings might be anticipating a Republican victory this year. Better to let Harris fall on her sword and run in 2028, when Trump will be excluded from running. 

All in all, the speed with which the party fell in line makes sense. Nevertheless, the decision to swap Biden for Harris without the input of the voters is unprecedented in the modern era. And even though the party elites have made a sensible choice, there are still important risks the Democrats are taking in doing so. 

There are two problems with doing this switcheroo. The first is a sense of legitimacy. Harris will be the first nominee of the Democratic Party chosen with no meaningful public input since 1968, when Hubert Humphrey won the nomination despite not having competed in any of the primaries that year. If one goes back to the 19th century, there is nothing unusual about the way in which Harris will be chosen. Party officials, national and state, gathered at the quadrennial convention to select a new candidate, without primaries or open caucuses. But when Democrats chose Humphrey in that manner in 1968, at the height of the controversy over the Vietnam War, there was outrage among average Democrats. Afterward, the party resolved to bring voters into the selection process, essentially creating the modern process. 

As of now, this problem is unlikely to be significant. Early polls do not show a sense of frustration among Democratic voters. If anything, the average Democrat seems to be relieved. Most polls show Democratic voters agreed Biden needed to step aside and that Harris is an acceptable replacement. That could change between now and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, but for now, the Democratic rank and file seem to have approved the move. At most, the penalty the Democrats will pay for the “anti-democratic” removal of Harris is to give the Trump campaign a pointed rejoinder to accusations that he is a threat to democracy. As a rhetorical matter, that is good for the GOP, but it will probably not be significant in deciding the outcome of the election. 

The second problem with swapping Harris for Biden is that it avoids the utility of a proper primary campaign. That could be a big deal. In a way, the Democrats have repeated the mistake they made over a year ago when they paved the way for Biden to acquire the nomination. Granted, primary campaigns are grossly inefficient: They take too long, cost too much money, and involve the party mostly training its fire on itself. No wonder the Democrats have been at pains to avoid them. But they do provide value in demonstrating which candidates have “what it takes,” to borrow a phrase from Richard Ben Cramer. Primaries illustrate which candidate has the guts, drive, and skill to wage a general election campaign, during which the opposition will relentlessly attack the nominee while undecided voters watch with an ever-critical eye. 

One can see the problem in avoiding such a contest with the quick collapse of Biden. It was evident at his June debate with Trump that he was not up to a campaign. But if the Democrats had an actual primary this year, his feebleness would have been manifest to them much earlier. But they avoided it purposefully. The Democratic National Committee changed the calendar to help Biden — moving South Carolina, Biden’s strongest state, to the first primary and disqualifying the New Hampshire one, where Biden performed poorly in 2020. No major Democratic challengers stood against him. No major financiers came forward to vouch funds to any challenger. And all this was despite the fact that the Democratic rank-and-file did want an alternative to Biden. The party, so intent it was on unity, inadvertently doomed itself to the last three weeks of internal dissension.

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So it may also be once again. In February 2007, when Barack Obama declared his candidacy for president, most people wrote him off as a long shot who was not possibly up to a campaign. But in August 2008, when he accepted the Democratic nomination, everybody knew he was ready for the rigors of the general election. After all, he had proven himself ready in the primary campaign against Hillary Clinton. Can the same be said for Harris? Hardly. When last she was a candidate for president, back in 2020, she quickly wilted under the spotlight. Has she learned from her mistakes? Perhaps. Is she going to be a more effective candidate this time around? Possibly. But without having won the nomination through the primary process, nobody knows for sure — not even Harris. Democrats are taking a risk. 

Granted, a risk for Democrats at this point is an upgrade. Harris gives them a chance to win, which is more than can be said with Biden as the nominee. Yet it was the party’s desperate desire to avoid a challenge for Biden in the first place that put them in this situation. And the speed with which the elites have rallied around Harris leaves open the possibility that once again they have endorsed a candidate not up to the challenge.

Jay Cost is the Gerald R. Ford senior nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.