On Politics: Democrats look to end the electability question

The party is battling a squishy, often self-reinforcing concept about the perceived ability to win.

View in browser|nytimes.com August 26, 2024 Vice President Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week. The Democratic Party is still battling concerns about the idea of electability. Erin Schaff/The New York Times Democrats look to end the electability question By Jess Bidgood and Maya King The latest, with 71 days to go Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are at odds over their Sept. 10 debate. Democrats sued the Georgia state election board, warning that changes it has approved to the election certification process could create "chaos" in November. In Detroit, Trump attacked Harris over the American military's Afghanistan exit. This year, Angela Alsobrooks, the county executive of Prince George's County, Md., and a Democrat, sought support for her U.S. Senate bid from an elected official she had known for years. "She said to me, 'I'm so sorry. I want to be really blunt with you, Angela,'" Alsobrooks, who is Black, said, recalling that the official, a fellow Democrat whom she did not name, said she thought Alsobrooks could not win. "We are not ready to elect a Black woman in the state of Maryland," Alsobrooks recounted the official as saying. It turned out that Maryland Democrats were ready to do just that. Alsobrooks beat a white man in her Senate primary by more than 10 percentage points. Public polling has shown her leading another, former Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, whom she will face in November. But the exchange, which Alsobrooks described in an interview last week during the Democratic National Convention, underscores the way a party that is trying to elect the first Black female president is still battling anxieties about the idea of electability — and preparing to confront them. Electability — a squishy and often self-reinforcing concept about who is perceived as being able to win elections — was a through line of the Democratic primary in 2020, when voters stung by the 2016 election wrung their hands over whether preferred presidential candidates who were female, nonwhite or both could garner enough support in key battleground states. The party ultimately coalesced around Joe Biden. Democrats did not have a chance to air those concerns in a drawn-out primary in 2024, and many suggested last week that identity-based questions about electability should remain firmly in the past. They view the issue of electability as providing cover for racist and sexist notions about white voters being apprehensive about backing Black candidates and male voters being reluctant to vote for female candidates. "People say, 'Oh, women candidates, they can't beat Donald Trump,' and I say to them, 'You know what, Nancy Pelosi did it every single day,'" Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota told her state's delegation last week. But, just below the surface, many of Harris's supporters — particularly those who are Black — see those concerns as an intrinsic force in an election where the candidate is trying to make history. "Do I still have concerns about whether or not we've reached that point? I think we have, but I do have concerns about it," said Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, a Democrat who nevertheless said he was heartened by the confidence he sees around Harris's candidacy. A shift in Black voters' pragmatism During her first run for president in 2019, Harris hoped to draw support from South Carolina's Black voters, one of the most important demographics in the 2020 presidential primary. Yet their support for her was negligible compared with their support for Biden, the candidate most Black voters in the state knew best as an ally of prominent South Carolina lawmakers and the vice president to America's first Black president, Barack Obama. More, they saw Biden as the most electable — not to them, necessarily, but to the vast majority of Americans, who they argued, would find him formidable in a race against former President Donald Trump. Atima Omara, a Democratic strategist in Virginia who advises largely women, people of color and young people, said questions of electability could be somewhat circular, fueled when a largely white class of consultants, donors and top party brass fails to support candidates of color. Omara believes those questions bubbled up again this summer, when the future of Biden's candidacy was in doubt and some Democrats briefly suggested there be a "mini primary" that could bypass Harris. "That was because they were questioning whether the Black woman was electable or not," Omara said. "'Let's put in somebody more palatable.' That was the subtext there." Annie McDaniel, a Black state legislator in South Carolina who supported Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey during the state's 2020 primary, said this dynamic haunted her until just a week ago. "Going to the convention, I was concerned about her electability because I knew the issue was still there," she said of Harris. She changed her mind after seeing an arena filled with Democrats of all ages, races and genders cheering for Harris. And back in South Carolina, the voters Harris may have had to fight to win over seemed more supportive. Harris lets others do the defining If elected, Harris would be America's first Black and Indian woman to become president — a fact few have glossed over in discussing her candidacy. Harris herself, however, has been less vocal about it. She did not directly mention the history-making potential of her candidacy when she spoke at the convention in Chicago. There, it was Harris's immediate family and close friends who defined the vice president's identity. That allowed Harris to make a pragmatic case for her candidacy in her own words — one that was centered not on her race or gender but on her political experience. "I was very pleased that she kept the focus on the country, on the people that she wanted to serve. Why get off into her history making? That ain't gonna put food on anybody's table," Clyburn said. That, Alsobrooks said, is ultimately how voters would show that a Black and South Asian woman is electable. "We're not electing people based on their race, gender or anything else — we're electing people who best articulate a positive vision for our country," Alsobrooks said. At a campaign stop in a Falls Church, Va., restaurant on Monday, former President Donald Trump told members of the news media that it "doesn't matter to me" whether the microphones were muted during his scheduled debate with Ms. Harris next month. Doug Mills/The New York Times The Debate debate: Trump suggests he may bail, Harris seeks rule changes The Harris and Trump campaigns are preparing for a debate that may or may not happen on Sept. 10 on ABC, and like boxers trying to psych each other out at a weigh-in before a bout, they are trading taunts. My colleagues Michael M. Grynbaum and Maggie Astor have the blow-by-blow. The Harris and Trump campaigns squabbled on Monday over the ground rules of their coming debate in Philadelphia — the home of Rocky Balboa — and within hours, the Trump campaign found its argument undermined by an unlikely foil: the former president himself. Donald Trump swung first, blasting ABC in a social media post on Sunday, suggesting that the network's anchors and executives were biased against him and threatening, not for the first time, to pull out of the event. "I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?" he wrote. Then, on Monday, Harris's campaign went public with its request to ABC and other networks to change one of the debate's agreed-upon conditions: that each candidate's microphone be muted when it isn't their turn to speak. In a statement to Politico, Brian Fallon, a spokesman for the Harris campaign, added a dig for good measure: "Our understanding is that Trump's handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don't think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own." Jason Miller, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, shot back. "ABC offered the exact same debate rules as CNN, and we accepted — as did the Harris camp," he wrote, referring to the CNN debate between Mr. Trump and President Biden in June, when the muted-microphones rule was in effect. Miller tossed in a gibe of his own: "Now, after the Harris campaign has begun debate prep, they're clearly concerned about what they're seeing from Harris's performance." But when Trump was asked about the microphone issue by reporters in Virginia later on Monday, he seemed to back away from the fierce objections of his team. He told members of the news media that it "doesn't matter to me" whether the microphones were muted, adding, "I'd rather have it probably on. But the agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time." Trump also said that ABC should be "shut out" of hosting the debate, while adding he was still "thinking about" whether he should participate. Read more here. — Michael M. Grynbaum and Maggie Astor MORE POLITICS NEWS AND ANALYSIS Paul Ratje for The New York Times On Immigration, Harris and Democrats Walk a Delicate — and Harder — Line The message Democrats put forward at their convention last week, a tougher line than in decades, reflects how deeply immigration remains a political vulnerability for the party. By Jazmine Ulloa and Zolan Kanno-Youngs Rachel Woolf for The New York Times Trump and Harris Embody a Stark Partisan Divide on Fighting Poverty The two presidential candidates can both point to records of pushing poverty rates down, but their approaches could hardly be more different. By Jason DeParle Jim Wilson/The New York Times As Kamala Harris Claims Oakland, Berkeley Forgives The vice president has virtually erased Berkeley, Calif., her hometown, from her campaign biography. The residents of "the People's Republic" say they get it. By Heather Knight and Alexandra Berzon Robb Long/Associated Press Republicans are combing Tim Walz's record for misstatements. By Maggie Astor Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times Political Memo Why Harris's Barrier-Breaking Bid Feels Nothing Like Hillary Clinton's The first-female-president energy of 2016 has been replaced by a more serious tone, with Democrats warning gravely of the new frontiers in the post-Roe era. By Katie Glueck Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you're enjoying what you're reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. Try four weeks of complimentary access to The Tilt Nate Cohn, The Times's chief political analyst, makes sense of the latest political data. Get it in your inbox Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. 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