Is Kamala Harris Ready for Trump?

Vice President Kamala Harris seemed to have one goal at a campaign rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, yesterday: Prove she’s ready to square up to Donald Trump. Harris said Trump’s name 15 times in fewer than 20 minutes, and you could hear the disdain in her voice each time.

“As Trump bows down to dictators, he makes America weak,” she told the crowd. She scoffed that Trump has “embraced” Russian President Vladimir Putin. She warned of Trump’s own authoritarian aims, such as targeting his political enemies, rounding up peaceful protesters, and, in her words, terminating the U.S. Constitution. This race, she said, is “the most existential, consequential, and important election of our lifetime.”

For now, of course, the monumental task of defeating Trump still belongs to President Joe Biden. But in the two weeks since Biden’s disastrous debate against Trump, calls for him to step aside haven’t subsided. Should Biden choose to leave the race in the coming days, Harris is currently his most obvious replacement. The Biden campaign is reportedly polling how she’d fare against Trump in November. Others are, too. A new ABC/Ipsos poll shows Harris beating Trump by three points in a general-election matchup. And so, after three aimless years as vice president, Harris seems to be discreetly making her pitch to be at the top of the ticket.

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In Greensboro, her messaging appeared to work. The crowd was far more lively, attentive, and engaged than the one that came out for Biden last week in Madison, Wisconsin. Whereas the Biden-Harris campaign has lately felt funereal, yesterday afternoon was festive. A booming drum line and dance team warmed up the crowd, and a live DJ cycled through Michael Jackson songs and R&B classics.

Harris is still figuring out her political personality, and she isn’t magnetic onstage; she may never have the political “rock star” qualities of former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Throughout her speech, though, she appeared far more cogent and capable than her GOP opponent—or her running mate.

Harris has lately been traveling the country trying to engage with one of the Democratic Party’s most important coalitions: Black voters. She recently spoke at the Essence Festival in New Orleans, as well as at a 20,000-person Dallas gathering hosted by Alpha Kappa Alpha, the historically Black sorority. The Greensboro event took place inside a basketball gym at a century-old, predominantly Black high school. Some attendees wore T-shirts and buttons that read BLACK VOTERS MATTER.

Her address centered on the idea of freedom: freedom of speech, Freedom Fighting during the civil-rights era, reproductive freedom. When, early on, she was interrupted by a protester, she offered a rare ad-lib: “This is an extraordinary community of people who have always fought for civil rights and for the rights of all people to speak,” she said. She gestured toward the person being escorted out by security, then paused for a beat. “When it is their turn to speak.” The crowd laughed and applauded.

Harris sought to draw a connection between Greensboro’s civil-rights history and the present-day fight for reproductive rights. She laid the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade directly at Trump’s feet, noting that more than 20 states now have “Trump abortion bans.” Her most memorable line of the day concerned Trump’s remaking of the Court and the long tail of the Roe reversal: “We have worked too hard and for too long to see our daughters grow up in a world with fewer rights than our mothers.”  

She mostly stuck to her script. Moments when she offered an aside—“I love Gen Z!”— felt a bit cringey. She intoned North Carolina with a traveling politician’s adopted twang: Car-uh-ly-nuh. Overall, though, she played her part well. Her voice cracked with what appeared to be genuine emotion when she said, “We have a duty to serve in the fight for freedom, opportunity, and justice for all.”

Harris is the rare elected official with an impressive résumé who is still something of a blank slate for voters. She has a few personas, none of which has fully caught on in the public imagination. There’s the former prosecutor (once derided by leftists claiming that “Kamala is a cop”) who dressed down Jeff Sessions during a 2017 Senate intelligence-committee hearing. And there’s “Coconut Kamala,” the memeable veep who spouts odd asides such as “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” Yesterday, she delivered one of her trademark phrases, musing on “what is possible, unburdened by what has been.” Hearing it live made me wonder whether she knows that her goofiness has become an inescapable internet joke.

All told, she came across like a stronger version of the Harris who ran in the Democratic primary four years ago. But, as Republicans and Harris-skeptical Democrats will remind you, that Harris didn’t even make it to the Iowa caucuses. Despite her qualifications, she just didn’t connect with voters. She now has vice-presidential experience, but is she strong enough to withstand all that comes with facing Trump?

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The Democratic Party badly needs voters to think so. At his press conference last night, Biden said he would continue his candidacy, though he appeared to leave open the possibility of stepping aside, saying that there are “other people who could beat Trump too.” He was also careful to praise his vice president. On the Today show this morning, Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, one of the most powerful Democrats in the country, reiterated that he was “ridin’ with Biden,” albeit with a caveat. “And if he were to change his mind,” Clyburn added, “I would be all in for the vice president.”

As Harris rounded out her remarks yesterday, she focused on the stakes: “Ultimately, in this election, we each face a question: What kind of country do we want to live in?” She presented a binary choice: a nation built on freedom, compassion, and the rule of law, or one where chaos, fear, and hate reign.

“We the people have the power,” she said as she approached her finale, then segued into a call-and-response. “Do we believe in the promise of America?” (Yes!) “And are we ready to fight for it?” (Yes!) “And when we fight? We win!” Left unsaid was that the “we” may soon refer to herself and someone other than Joe Biden.