After President Joe Biden’s announcement that he will no longer seek re-election and endorsements of Kamala Harris by Democratic Party leaders, as of this writing, Harris seems poised to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in the November election.Â
The question is whether she can beat Donald Trump. I thought it would be interesting to examine at how previous incumbent vice presidents have fared when they were nominated to be their party’s presidential candidate to see if there are any noteworthy precedents.
Harris would be the fifth sitting VP to run for the presidency since World War II. The previous four have a mixed record.
What can we glean from those elections?
In 1960, the first incumbent VP to run for president after World War II was Richard Nixon. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was popular and enjoyed high approval ratings.
Nixon, however, ran against a media-savvy John F. Kennedy who used his success in televised debates to narrowly defeat Nixon.
Eight years later, America was involved in an unpopular war, and in the middle of the primary process, President Lyndon Johnson announced he was not going to seek re-election.
Robert Kennedy, the leading candidate to replace him, was assassinated after the California primary. At an extremely tumultuous convention in Chicago that was marked by rioting, Vice President Hubert Humphrey was nominated to run against Richard Nixon. The race was further complicated by George Wallace’s candidacy, which attracted southern voters. Like Nixon in 1960, Humphrey narrowly lost.
In 1988 George H. W. Bush won handily. The incumbent President Ronald Reagan enjoyed immense popularity and voting for Bush was seen as electing Reagan to a third term.
Plus, the Democrats nominated a very weak candidate in George Dukakis.
In 2000, Al Gore ran against George Bush. Gore won the popular vote, but lost in the Electoral College. Bill Clinton enjoyed popularity but was a polarizing figure and Gore did not mount a particularly effective campaign.
So what does historical precedent tell us about Kamala Harris’ chances of winning the presidential election?
Unfortunately for Harris, she must overcome many of the same obstacles that her unsuccessful predecessors faced. Like Nixon, her opponent understands how to use the media to his advantage.
Like Humphrey, she will be selected late in the process while the incumbent president has low approval ratings. Like Gore, she faces an uphill battle in the Electoral College. Unlike Bush, she cannot ride on the coattails of popular president.
While historical precedent does not seem to benefit Harris, 2024 is a particularly unique election because of who she is running against.
We have never had a situation where a sitting vice president has run against a former president who is seeking another term. We have not seen an election that is this polarized since before the Civil War. There are wild cards that are difficult to predict.
Espousing progressive rhetoric, Harris has not particularly distinguished herself with a long list of accomplishments.
Her previous presidential election campaign did not go well. She has a reputation of being hard on her staff. Her Achilles’ heel is immigration.
So why do people think she can win? The answer is simple — she is not Donald Trump. All she has to do is convince America that she is the least worst choice for president. MAGA supporters will discredit her efforts, but she only needs to convince a sufficient number of voters — particularly in swing states — that she is not as bad as Trump.
That will not be easy, but Harris may be better suited to the task than other potential candidates.
Biden’s horrific debate performance overshadowed Trump’s own less-than-stellar performance that was punctuated with misstatements and inane comments. Biden was incapable of responding to them, but Harris certainly has the capacity to do so.
Harris is a prosecutor by background. Presumably she will persuasively and coherently discuss the criminal charges against Trump that Special Counsel Jack Smith has thus far been prevented from presenting to a jury.
Harris can link Trump’s policy proposals with those of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. Clearly, Harris can connect Trump’s Supreme Court appointments with overturning Roe v. Wade and interfering with women’s health issues.
Of course Trump and the MAGA movement will respond by trying to show that Harris is a worse choice. This is likely to be one of the dirtiest campaigns in American history.
The election may not follow the precedents of previous elections involving a sitting vice president. That is probably a good thing for Harris.
Jim de Bree is a Valencia resident.
