How much chance does Kamala Harris have against Trump? Report Nyt
According to polls, Kamala Harris' approval rating is just over 38% and more than half of people surveyed disapprove of her work, but those who support her say that could change quickly. The New York Times article
Vice President Kamala Harris, who has struggled for nearly four years in President Biden's shadow, was thrust Sunday into the center of a unique political drama that could culminate in her becoming the first Black woman in the top job of a presidential candidate of a major party. Biden's decision to abandon his reelection bid and endorse Harris to succeed him puts her in a powerful, but uncertain, position to become the new face of the Democratic Party charged with preventing former President Donald J. Trump to return to the Oval Office for another four years – writes the New York Times . “Today I want to offer my full support and support to Kamala as our party's candidate this year. Democrats – it's time to unite and beat Trump,” Biden wrote in a post on social media after announcing his decision to step aside. "Let's do it". […]
HARRIS' STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
If she were to become the nominee, she would have just months to boost her flagging approval ratings, make the case for a Harris presidency and rally voters against Trump, whom Democrats have branded an existential threat to democracy and a champion of dangerous positions on guns, abortion, immigration, taxes, education and trade.
If Harris becomes the nominee, she would immediately turn the generational argument on Trump, who has spent years deriding Biden as a weak, old man. Harris, at 59, is 19 years younger than Trump, who is 78.
Harris would have no choice but to run based on the record of the Biden-Harris administration over the past four years, which Trump has relentlessly attacked. As the party's nominee, she could take credit for the president's legislative successes, such as new laws boosting infrastructure spending, but she would also be vulnerable to attack for his failures, such as the bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan, the surge in inflation and the difficulty of controlling the flow of migrants across the southern border.
After her first two years in office in which Harris was often derided as not measuring up, many Democrats have recently given her higher marks. The Supreme Court's decision to overturn the right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade brought her to prominence as a supporter of abortion rights and women's rights in general. She was seen as more effective in defending Biden after his disastrous debate performance than Biden himself. […]
SUCCESSES AND FAILURES
The arc of Harris' political career took her from local prosecutor to California's top law enforcement official to U.S. senator, breaking racial and gender barriers along the way with a melting pot history that included the father of Jamaican origin, mother born in India and marriage to a white, Jewish man.
She would be the first Black woman and the first South Asian woman to be nominated for president by the Democrats or Republicans.
In California and in Congress, she was a rising star whose ambition led her to seek the presidency in the 2020 race, joining a crowded field of contenders seeking a chance to unseat Trump from office. It didn't go well. After struggling to translate his personal story and gubernatorial agenda into support on the campaign trail, he dropped out of the race in December 2019, weeks before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. In August of the following year, Biden saved his political career by choosing Harris as his vice presidential candidate. He called her “a fearless fighter for the little ones and one of the best public servants in the country.” In an instant she became a potential heir in a Democratic Party already projected towards the future.
In a speech given after her and Biden's victory, Harris declared that “although I will be the first woman to hold this office, I will not be the last. Because every little girl who watches tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities." But as vice president, those lofty possibilities seemed to quickly evaporate. He struggled with the limitations imposed on those who occupy the vice presidency. And it ran up against a lack of clear direction or support from Biden and his White House team. […]
WHAT THE SURVEYS SAY
A recent average of polls on the website FiveThirtyEight.com shows his approval rating at just over 38%. More than half of the people surveyed disapprove of his work. Her allies say that could change quickly, as Harris seeks to take the top spot on the ticket and voters give her a second look, with much higher stakes.
But the memory of her quickly faltering 2020 campaign remains in the minds of many activists and other party members, who are already concerned about whether Harris has the popularity and charisma needed to carry Democrats over the finish line. in the race against Trump and in the effort to gain control of Congress. To do so, his team will probably try to resume the electoral apparatus built over the last year to elect Biden again. But she will also have to quickly demonstrate that she can stand alone against Trump, whose campaign has already begun to step up attacks against her.
And before she can be the candidate, she will have to navigate the treacherous policies of the Democratic Party and the well-known – but now suddenly important – rules that dictate how the party ratifies its candidate.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/quante-chance-ha-kamala-harris-contro-trump-report-nyt/ on Mon, 22 Jul 2024 09:03:12 +0000.