In the wake of Biden’s disastrous debate performance on Thursday, allies of Vice President Kamala Harris are privately discussing what her candidacy would look like if President Joe Biden drops out of the race for the White House, according to people familiar with the matter. How they helped her.
The conversations took place via phone calls and text messages from people who raised money for the vice president during his victory over Biden and other contenders in the 2020 Democratic primary, these people explained.
Key questions include whether Harris would take control of the massive Biden-Harris campaign coffers managed by the Biden team if the president drops out of the race.
Harris has emerged as the early favorite to replace the presidential nominee, but that’s no guarantee Democratic National Convention There will be no more contenders in Chicago and a potentially chaotic nomination battle.
Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said Harris likely holds the key to much of the funding. admit The rules were laid out during a recent conference call with party donors. Biden’s campaign began in June with $91 million cash on hand, according to Federal Election Commission records. The entire political operation, including Biden’s joint fundraising committee, entered July with $240 million on hand, according to the campaign.
There has also been discussion among Harris’ close aides about whether to start scheduling meetings between the vice president and some of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors if Biden withdraws, these people explained.
Harris’ allies have been urging other donors and party officials to reconsider the potential advantages the vice president’s policy mix could bring to the Democratic campaign platform: Her focus reproductive rightsher outreach Black voters and marginalized communities and her Comment in Germany in February, when she highlighted the U.S. Ukraine A person familiar with the matter revealed that this was to counter Russian intrusion.
Some of Harris’ past fundraisers are also texting each other about old Minute video The vice president succeeds an appointee from former President Donald Trump while he was a U.S. senator, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. It shows clips of Harris confronting former Attorney General Bill Barr, Jeff Sessions and later Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, among others.
They said the film also underscored a key message: Harris’s willingness to stand up to Trump’s allies, demonstrating her ability to stand up to the former president face-to-face. “Going one-on-one with Trump, Kamala will use her backbone, her values and her experience as a prosecutor to expose him,” the ad’s voiceover says.
The video was produced for a political action committee called People Standing Strong, which never fully got off the ground because Harris quit the committee in 2019, shortly after it was created. this PAC The company reportedly set aside nearly $300,000 worth of ads in the battleground state of Iowa, but those ads have not aired since Harris dropped out of the state’s caucuses.
White House spokespersons for the Harris and Biden campaigns did not respond to requests for comment.
Democrats could not imagine any discussion about how Harris might need to win the convention nomination battle before Thursday’s debate, when Biden struggled to defend his reelection but failed to push back against Trump.
Biden’s poor debate performance has dramatically shifted donor sentiment, with many privately discussing whether the president needs to step down to give the party the best chance of defeating Trump in November.
For example, one longtime strategist with close ties to many of California’s top fundraisers said donors who have sent videos since the debate “are confused, scared and sad.” “They’re desperate to defeat Trump.”
Dmitri Mehlhorn, a longtime adviser to Democratic donors such as tech investor Reid Hoffman, said in an email to allies on Wednesday that despite He continues to support Biden, but in his view, Harris would be a credible alternative.
“To be clear, Vice President Harris is a badass. A vote that puts her on top, coupled with people who balance out the weaknesses of her brand (examples include Mark Kelly, Andy Beshear, Roy Cooper, Josh Summers Pirro, etc.), will absolutely compete against the insane felon the other party has promised to nominate,” Melhorn wrote. “We’ll lose Joe’s super brand, but we’ll gain other benefits and still be competitive.”
Biden’s team said the president will not drop out of the race. Harris, meanwhile, remains loyal and plans to have lunch with the president at the White House on Wednesday.
Despite their public assurances that he would not drop out New York Times CNN reported on Wednesday that Biden had privately signaled to allies that he might not be able to salvage his candidacy.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates strongly denied the report in a social media post. CNBC and NBC News have not independently confirmed the conversation.
Harris defended the president’s debate performance to a group of her past donors in San Francisco on Tuesday.
The event was held at the home of real estate executive Susan Lowenberg, and the crowd included donors from Harris’ campaign for San Francisco district attorney, Pool reported.
“We have to fight, we know how to fight,” Harris told the crowd. “When we fight, we win.”
Since the debate, a growing number of party donors, most of whom have spoken privately, and some lawmakers have publicly questioned whether Biden is up to the task of serving another four years as president and whether he is not up to the task. November’s party nominee.
Texas Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett on Tuesday became the first Democratic member of Congress to call on Biden to step down.
Longtime Biden allies, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-Calif., told MSNBC it was fair for voters to ask about Biden’s health after his debate performance .
“I think it’s a legitimate question, ‘Is this an interlude or is this a condition?'” Pelosi said in a tweet.he interviewspointing out that this question should be asked of Biden and Trump.
this poll Biden has received mixed messages since the debate.
A CNN poll showed Trump leading Biden nationally by 6 points, the same as the network’s national poll in April.
But 75% of respondents said anyone other than Biden has a better chance of defeating Trump.
Harris’ stock price also began to rise in online betting pools over who will be the Democratic presidential nominee.
PredicIt allows people to place bets on political events, and the Vice President is now ranked second only to Biden.
Before the debate, PredictIt placed her odds of becoming the party’s nominee this year well behind Biden and even behind the likes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
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