USAnalysis

Kamala Harris suddenly presents Americans with a gender election

The fight to restore abortion will be placed at the centre of Harris’s campaign, while Trump has suddenly become the old man in the race

Kamala Harris's rapid capture of the Democratic crown has changed the political weather. Erin Schaff/New York Times
Kamala Harris's rapid capture of the Democratic crown has changed the political weather. Erin Schaff/New York Times
Edward Luce
Thu Jul 25 2024 - 16:36

Are we not entertained? No polls could capture the weirdness of the past seven days in American politics. It began in Milwaukee amid Republican euphoria that history was finally on Donald Trump’s side. It ended with a surge in Democratic enthusiasm for vice-president Kamala Harris as their overnight champion. In between, a Covid-stricken Joe Biden caved to demands not to run again. There was also the strange anointing of Yale-educated, Silicon Valley-funded JD Vance as America’s hillbilly-in-chief. It will be a while before we can reliably gauge what voters make of all this.

Yet amid the drama is a constant that will outlast the mood swings. The US election is now a battle between a man and a woman. They are not just any man and woman. The man, Trump, entered the arena last week to the sound of James Brown’s It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World. He was introduced by a testosterone-fuelled line-up that included Kid Rock chanting “fight, fight, fight”, the actor-wrestler Hulk Hogan (Terry Gene Bollea) ripping his shirt off to reveal a Trump-Vance tank top, and Dana White, chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the last word in blood-soaked pugilism.

If Trump’s point was not already stark, his selection of Vance drove it home. He could have broadened his appeal to the “secret non-Trump voter” – chiefly women in conservative communities who are worried about loss of any bodily autonomy. They drove much of the roughly fifth of the party’s votes that went to Nikki Haley in the primaries. Instead, Trump doubled down by selecting a running mate who has argued for a national abortion ban. Picking Vance was a sign that Trump was confident his base would be enough to carry him to victory. At the time, Trump’s bet did not seem outlandish. But it was based on an assumption that quickly vanished – that a visibly ailing Biden would be his opponent.

Harris’s rapid capture of the Democratic crown has changed the political weather. A funereal Democratic Party has rediscovered its zest. Complaints that there will be no contest for the party’s nomination were outdated before they were made. The alacrity with which Harris’s rivals endorsed her candidacy showed a party hungry for unity and impatient to take the fight to Trump. It is hard to imagine that her lightning elevation was not influenced by the tone of Trump’s message in Milwaukee last week. No female politician better personifies the fight to restore national abortion rights since the US supreme court’s overturning of Roe vs Wade two years ago. Expect Harris to make that a centrepiece of her campaign.

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Past US elections are no guide to the uniqueness of this one. Even Hillary Clinton versus Trump in 2016 – the only previous time a woman has been presidential nominee for a major party – could be misleading. Clinton did indeed warn that a Trump victory would lead to the end of Roe vs Wade. Harris has the advantage of pointing out that it has happened. That makes it far easier for her to warn of what may come next. Rights that were once taken for granted, such as contraception, the morning-after pill and exceptions for rape and incest, are already under fire in some Republican states. Trump sensibly avoided pledging a national abortion ban on the Republican platform. But his 39-year-old running mate believes that life begins at conception.

Donald Trump's choice of JD Vance as his running was based on an assumption that a visibly ailing Biden would be his opponent. Photograph: Doug Mills/New York Times
Donald Trump's choice of JD Vance as his running was based on an assumption that a visibly ailing Biden would be his opponent. Photograph: Doug Mills/New York Times

Regardless of the nominees, America remains a roughly 50:50 nation. The economy and immigration will be at least as important as gender in shaping voters’ decisions. Harris will struggle to explain her record as Biden’s “border tsar” over the past three years. But she starts with two clear advantages and one big disadvantage.

First, she has room to redefine herself. Insiders believe she is a poor campaigner whose liberalism alienates centrist Americans. But most Americans know little about her. Her energy and what Trump calls her “cackle” laugh could be positives. Trump, by contrast, is a known known. Second, she can avoid some of the curse of incumbency. Trump has a record to attack, too. He is suddenly the old man in the race.

On the negative side, this election is going to get nasty quickly. Harris is a non-white female with stepchildren. Vance once described her as a “childless cat lady”. Republicans have also branded her the “DEI hire”. Again, Harris could turn this to her advantage. She has more latitude to reach out to white men than Trump can to women of any colour. But that will take dexterity. She might add that getting pregnant is not a qualification for the White House. None of the previous 46 presidents gave birth. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024