Senator Kamala Harris of California said Monday she’ll pursue the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, a decision announced with deliberate symbolism on Martin Luther King Jr. Day that cuts to the heart of a potentially history-making candidacy.
Harris, a daughter of a Jamaican-born father and Indian immigrant mother, would be the first black woman as well as the first Indian-American in the Oval Office. Her message focused on social justice and inclusion is aimed at a diverse Democratic electorate eager for representation, while offering a stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s brand of nostalgic nationalism.
“Truth, justice, decency, equality, freedom, democracy -- these aren’t just words. They’re the values we as Americans cherish, and they’re all on the line now,” Harris says in a video released on Monday as she also announced her candidacy on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “That’s why I’m running for president of the United States. I’m running to lift those voices.”
But she’ll have plenty of rivals, some of whom are better-positioned to appeal to the ascendant economic-populist wing of the Democratic Party.
Black Voters Key
Harris’s likely path to the Democratic nomination runs through black voters, who made up a quarter of the primary electorate in 2016 and were critical to nominating Hillary Clinton, as well as to electing Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.
The backing of African Americans, who dominate the Democratic electorate in early primaries like South Carolina, which is expected to hold its primary in late February 2020, followed by other Southern states in the first half of March, would make her formidable.
Winning her delegate-rich home state of California, which votes relatively early on March 3, compared with its 2016 primary in early June, could make Harris the favorite.
“Kamala Harris has -- on paper -- the clearest path to the Democratic nomination because of her potential appeal to various elements of the Democratic Party and new prominence of the California party,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a communications strategist for Obama’s 2008 campaign and White House. “Having said that, being best on paper is often not worth the cost of the paper.”
Staffing Up
Her first campaign stop will be on Friday in Columbia, South Carolina, a Harris aide said, while revealing some early hires Monday. Her campaign manager will be Juan Rodriguez, who ran her 2016 Senate campaign; her campaign chair will be her sister, Maya Harris; and the communications director will be Lily Adams, who’s been working in her Senate office.
Challenges abound for the 54-year-old first-term senator. She lacks a paper trail on economic issues important to many on the left, leaving her vulnerable to competitors like Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, whose calls to curb income inequality and Wall Street influence date back decades. Harris’s 13-year record as a district attorney and California’s attorney general has prompted criticism from progressives who argue she wasn’t tough enough on banks, and fought to uphold convictions tainted by exculpatory evidence.