Kamala Harris 2020 campaign megathread

[Mike Thick]

Here in Georgia with a bunch of organizers and party people on my social media (more of them white than black I might add) and this announcement by far has gotten the biggest and most fervent reaction. She’s sweeping the South.

Same story in CA — word I’m getting is that her organizer and donor support here is nearly unanimous. And CA + the South + black support elsewhere is the nomination.

[Mike Thick]

As a Republican, I haven't paid much attention to Harris so I don't understand her appeal.  I know she'd be the first woman and first Indian president, but what are her signature issues?  What has she accomplished in her political career so far?

Would be naive to say that checking demographic boxes does come into play here. However:
 - She is extraordinarily charismatic, even by the ridiculously high standard applied to female candidates
 - She’s in a space on the ideological spectrum where she can plausibly appeal to some progressives without alienating Hillary types
 - She’s a natural fit for key constituencies in the primary, like black voters and suburban women, but her appeal isn’t exclusive to those groups
 - A lot of women, both high-info and low-info, remember her from the Kavanaugh hearings
 - Nobody else in the field has the combo of POC and leftist cred they’d need to actually make a big deal out of her record as AG

[Mike Thick]

Here in Georgia with a bunch of organizers and party people on my social media (more of them white than black I might add) and this announcement by far has gotten the biggest and most fervent reaction. She’s sweeping the South.

Same story in CA — word I’m getting is that her organizer and donor support here is nearly unanimous. And CA + the South + black support elsewhere is the nomination.

Couple problems:
1.CA is going to be heavily contested by everyone. She isnt likely to get a simple majority there.
2. The Black vote will be divided between other candidates like Booker, Biden, and Sanders
3. The South is only influential if she can get crazy margins out of it like Clinton/Obama did. See point 2 on how this would be difficult.

That plan, IMO, is highly risky, and requires no mistakes or losses for the Harris campaign.

1. In CA, she will have exponentially more institutional support than any other candidate. Full stop. Everyone in the California Dems will be working overtime for her. People will be fighting to bump their vote share up, sure, but she starts miles ahead of the field here in pretty much every way except maybe name recognition
2. We’ll have to wait and see, I guess. Probably safe to say that Bernie won’t get 35% of the black vote this time, and (although this is total speculation) I think Harris will have a clear shot at overtaking Biden once they’re on equal footing name rec wise

Additionally, it isn’t like she won’t appeal to anyone outside of California and the South. She can fairly easily make up for not getting huge margins with blacks or in CA with other constituencies elsewhere