More on the Vice Presidential Selection of Kamala Harris

I have a new piece today in the New York Times that focuses on what the selection of Kamala Harris tells us about Joe Biden. Over the course of his long political career, I argue, Biden has always been a man of his party. He thus was unsurprisingly sensitive to pressure (or encouragement, if you prefer) from within Democratic circles to choose a woman, especially a black woman, and especially Harris. And the undeniable similarities and parallels between the figures of Harris, now very much Biden's political heir apparent, and Barack Obama merely underscore the extent to which the Democratic Party is still forged in Obama's image.

There wasn't enough room for me to touch on it in the piece, but it's become clear that Biden's organizational ties to the institutional Democratic Party are also very strong—probably stronger than those of any Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson. For example, while Obama mostly disdained and neglected the Democratic National Committee, preferring to build his own personal voter outreach structure (ultimately called Organizing for America), the Biden campaign seems to be closely integrated with the DNC and much more invested in its success. And the retrospective accounts of his vice presidential search process that are starting to pop up in the press all describe a very extensive and elaborate intelligence-gathering operation designed to synthesize input from a wide array of party actors and stakeholders.

Here are a few other final thoughts as another round of veepstakes draws to a close:

1. It's not entirely clear from the reports I've seen whether Harris was the front-runner from the beginning. But it does seem obvious that a decision was made fairly early in the process to prioritize black women and—critically—to leave other party members and the press with the same impression. Once you've signaled that you're so interested in a black running mate that you're considering multiple non-traditional picks like Susan Rice, Karen Bass, or Val Demings, you'd be running quite a risk of disappointment by settling on, say, Gretchen Whitmer instead.

2. This strategic framing by the Biden campaign is one of the reasons why the Harris pick has been described as "safe" and "obvious." She's certainly the safe choice in comparison to Rice, Bass, or Demings. But a campaign that had floated a different mix of finalists might not have produced the same response.

3. One of the important issues that this search process has demonstrated is the underrepresentation of women, especially women who aren't white, in the traditional vice presidential (and presidential) feeder offices. Harris is one of only two black women who have ever been elected to the Senate in American history (Carol Moseley-Braun, who served one term from Illinois in the 1990s, is the other), and no black woman has ever served as a state governor. In our current political moment, the demand for national elected leaders who are not white men—at least on the Democratic side—is exceeding the ready supply. If Biden had ruled out Harris, for whatever reason, he would have been faced with a real dilemma, forcing him to relax either his preference for a black running mate or the normal perceptions of the appropriate credentials for presidential office.

4. The press has made a lot of hay out of the Trump campaign's incoherent set of attacks on Harris as it simultaneously attempts to paint her, like Biden, as both a radical anti-police anarchist and an overly punitive agent of the carceral state. But my guess is that the bulk of Republican messaging, in paid advertisements and surrogate talking points, will emphasize the former claim, with the latter saved for a few targeted social media communications intended to decrease turnout on the left. As with much else in politics, follow the money: tweets are free, but TV ads are expensive.

5. The vice presidential selection is always good for a few days of media frenzy in an otherwise slow summer week for news, but it's worth remembering that running mates normally fade into the background as the fall campaign heats up (with one historical exception that is, above all, a cautionary tale). And the next VP debate to have an important effect on the presidential race will be the first one ever.

Education Is Hurting Republicans in the Suburbs: New Op-Ed in the New York Times

I have a new piece over at the New York Times today explaining how Republican leaders' recent education policies are hurting them at the polls among suburban voters as they play to a conservative base that is growing older, more rural, and less well-educated. Could Republicans reclaim the education issue and win back the suburbs? It's happened before...

Yes, Some Suburbs Are Turning Blue—But Others Have Stayed Quite Red: New Op-Ed in the New York Times

The results of the 2018 elections have repeatedly been interpreted as demonstrating a weakened Republican Party in suburban America, as Donald Trump's antics are supposedly driving exasperated suburbanites into the Democratic camp. In my latest op-ed piece for the New York Times, I explain that this story indeed holds true for the nation's largest metropolitan areas. In the remainder of suburban America, however, where the electorate is whiter and more socially conservative, the GOP remains electorally dominant in the Trump era. The research paper upon which the article is drawn, "The Suburbanization of the Democratic Party, 1992–2018," also served as the basis of a recent column by Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report and is available here.

Democrats Don't Need Unity to Win Elections: New Op-Ed in the New York Times

In every election year that I can remember, media pundits have spent a lot of time worrying (or crowing) that the Democratic Party is sabotaging its chances of victory. And, of course, 2018 is no different. As Matt Grossmann and I write today in the New York Times, Democratic disunity isn't an electoral disadvantage—though the developments of 2018 point toward serious future internal fights over which policy issues should receive top priority once the party regains power in 2020 or beyond.

More on the Conservative Media in the New York Times

Today's New York Times column by Tom Edsall concerns the rising power of conservative media within the Republican Party in the Trump era. It draws on research and analysis by a number of scholars and practitioners, and quotes at length from my latest paper with Matt Grossmann, "Placing Media in Conservative Culture." You can find the column here, and the full version of our paper here.

Party Asymmetry in the Trump Era: Op-Ed in the New York Times

Not long ago, I wrote about the lack of a "liberal Tea Party" in the Trump era. In our latest op-ed piece for the New York Times, Matt Grossmann and I delve deeper into this question—and explain why being a member of the anti-Trump "resistance" requires you to keep your weekends free for one protest march after another. As veteran Honest Graft readers will know, this argument draws upon our 2016 book Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats.

Corporations and the Culture War: Op-Ed in the New York Times

I have a new op-ed piece in the New York Times explaining how the culture war has fueled geographic divisions in the American electorate, which in turn has ended up furthering the interests of wealthy individuals and corporations. The analysis draws on the research presented in my recent book Red Fighting Blue: How Geography and Electoral Rules Polarize American Politics.