Trinidad and Tobago political analyst on US election: Does Kamala have traction?

POLITICAL scientist Dr Bishnu Ragoonath asked whether US Vice President Kamala Harris has sufficient political traction to now be seemingly assuming herself to be Democratic Party nominee in the US presidential election next November. He spoke to Newsday on July 22, the day after US President Joe Biden’s sudden withdrawal of his candidacy for re-election, after calls by a snowballing of voices from Congress.

Many feared their own prospects for re-election could be pulled down by low polling for Biden after his poor performance in the live television debate against Republican nominee Donald Trump on June 27.

Ragoonath first mulled the idea that Biden may well have been forced out by party colleagues, even after his initial defiance of calls to go uttered by congressional leaders Hakeem Jeffries (Democratic head in the House) and Chuck Schumer (Senate majority leader, a Democrat) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

He wondered whether the party had engineered a White House coup against Biden, threatening to impeach him then and there as unfit for office on the grounds of ill health and so cut short his remaining six months in office, unless he agreed not to stand again.

Ragoonath reasoned, “Why did he take half-hour after his withdrawal to announce support for Kamala? If it was voluntary, why didn’t he announce it immediately?

“As a political scientist, there will always be conspiracy theories.”

He then asked if Harris had political traction.

“Let us be real about this. Kamala was never nominated per se. She never went through the Democratic Party primaries to be nominated as the presidential candidate. So she was never in the picture.”

In the 2024 primaries, Biden won 87 per cent of votes, beating Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson and Jason Palmer, until himself withdrawing. In the 2020 primaries, Biden beat a wide field including Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, and Elizabeth Warren, plus Harris, who had dropped out early in the process, that is, before the Iowa caucus.

Ragoonath said, “Yes, people saw her as Biden’s vice president and she would continue, but did they really see her as ascending to the nominee’s position?”

He said many other people had gone through the 2024 primaries, which Biden won with 14 million votes. Ragoonath said the usual process is to complete the primaries process and the winner then selects a running mate for vice president.

“Last week it was only after Trump was nominated that he identified, ‘Vance will be my running mate.’

“So there was no notion before that Kamala was a shoo-in for the presidential nominee.

“That is one of the concerns the Democratic Party will have to deal with.”

He said many other individuals may wish to submit their names as Democratic Party presidential candidate, noting Kamala had never gone through the full process to seek the nomination.

“That I think is a real concern the party will have to deal with.”

At this stage, the nomination would be decided by super-delegates not the usual delegates, he said,  not knowing their conversations over Harris.

“Biden had 14 million delegates. Now he has withdrawn, does that free up his delegate votes?” Ragoonath mused.

Newsday asked if it was Harris’ sstrategy for a rapid piling up of endorsements from party figures to try to sway the super-delegates in her favour.

Ragoonath replied, “I can’t answer that. But a lot of people who are endorsing Kamala, are they hoping to be considered her running mate?

“Is that one of the reasons why there is this ‘push’ to support her?

“I think the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is now in a bit of a fix in how they are actually going to treat with the whole process. They need some time to clear their heads as to exactly how they are going to treat with this.”

Those endorsing Harris include Biden, Pelosi, Jeffries and Schumer, but not former president Barack Obama. Newsday asked if there is a point of no return after which the door closes and it is too late to seek anyone but Harris.

Ragoonath replied, “They had already set the date as the end of the first week in August as to when they would have their convention, and at the end their nominee would be identified, and the running mate. They will have to identify that person by the middle of August for that person to be on the ballot.”

Many states have given time frames consistent with a mid-August deadline, he said.

“What I expect will happen before the end of this week is the DNC will now have to determine whether they want to go back into a round of primaries, or whether they go with Kamala as the primary candidate and go to the convention and hope the super-delegates support her.

“You hear people supporting her, but (Bernie) Sanders, for instance, hasn’t said anything. Remember he was one of those who was in the (2020) primaries.

“Are those people who were in the primaries, who had put themselves forward and were defeated, are they willing to sit back and simply accept Kamala as the nominee? Somebody who did not face up in those primary debates with them? I don’t know.”