A SHOW OF UNITY
In Texas, Democrats say pick of California senator will resonate with diverse electorate
WASHINGTON — Forget Beto O’Rourke and Julián Castro. Texas Democrats say Kamala Harris was the best possible vice presidential pick for Joe Biden’s chances in Texas.
They hope Harris — who is both the first African American woman and the first Asian American on a major party’s presidential ticket — will be a cleanup hitter, especially in the increasingly diverse suburbs that represent the most likely path to flipping Texas for the first time in a generation.
“For Texas, there is not a better pick,” said Mustafa Tameez, a Democratic strategist in Houston.
“She has a multicultural background,” Tameez said. “Having someone who can authentically speak to those populations in the suburbs is going to create momentum. Having somebody like that on the ticket automatically jump-starts it.”
Political scientists say Democrats are probably right about the boost Harris can provide in the suburbs, even though she may not excite progressives in the state who were crucial to elevating O’Rourke’s 2018 campaign and mobilizing younger voters in general in Texas.
Harris, a California senator who is the daughter of
Political scientists say Democrats are probably right about the boost Harris can provide in the suburbs, even though she may not excite progressives in the state.
immigrants, could be especially effective in places like Fort Bend County, one of the biggest and fastest-growing counties in the state, where more than 28 percent of the population is foreign-born and more than 20 percent are Asian American.
“By selecting someone who isn’t overwhelmingly identified with the most progressive wing of the party, Biden’s pick can technically appeal to both sets of voters — moderate whites and moderate white women who may be considering the Democratic Party and people of color in Texas,” said Joshua Blank, research director at the University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Politics Project.
Harris also could appeal to minority voters who make up the bulk of the Democrats’ base in Texas — both the Asian Americans who are driving much of the growth of the state’s suburbs, and the Black women who “have been the base and buckle of the Democratic Party,” said Michael O. Adams, a political scientist at Texas Southern University.
“There’s a lot of energy there,” Adams said.
Texas Republicans were quick to attack Harris as a liberal extremist.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn’s campaign described her like this: “She believes in RADICAL ideas like: Tearing down measures at the border that keep Texans SAFE and protect our communities from traffickers and drug smugglers, solely blaming President Trump while staying quiet on China for their lies about Coronavirus while it ravaged the GLOBE and killed MILLIONS, and promoting a single-payer health care plan that is even MORE radical than ObamaCare.”
“We can’t afford her dangerous ideas anywhere NEAR the White House,” the campaign wrote in an email to supporters.
Texas GOP Chairman Allen West said in a statement: “There’s a reason why people are fleeing California, and other failed blue states, for the growth, opportunity, and promise of Texas.”
“The radical left demanded a Black female VP. For them it’s about identity politics, not character,” West said. “And Sen. Kamala Harris has done nothing to resolve the issues facing the American Black community or, for that matter, Americans period.”
But while Harris is more progressive than Biden, she’s not a pick aimed at bringing in votes from the left wing of the party, which lobbied for a more progressive pick such as U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts or U.S. Rep. Karen Bass of California.
Biden’s choice comes as polls show him within a few percentage points of Trump in Texas, fueling hope that he could be the first Democrat to win the state since Jimmy Carter in 1976.
A critical base
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat, called the moment “a significant, seismic change in the direction of America.”
“It finally means that a person of great talent and compassion — an African American woman, a Black woman, a woman of color — has climbed the mountaintop that Martin Luther King promised,” she said. “I believe that the unity ticket of Biden and Harris will be a ticket that allows everyone to have a sense that they have a seat at the table.” Harris addresses the biggest concern that Democrats had coming out of 2016, when a record 137.5 million Americans voted in the presidential election.
But data from the Pew Research Center shows that while almost every demographic group saw a corresponding boost in turnout, Black turnout declined for the first time in 20 years, falling from 66.6 percent in 2012 to 59.6 percent in 2016.
In the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania there was a huge drop-off in turnout among women of color who previously voted for President Barack Obama, said Aimee Allison, founder of She The People, a California-based group that has been pushing Democrats to more genuinely address issues of importance to women of color. All three of those states wound up voting for Donald Trump, paving his way to the White House.
Allison said 2016 showed how women of color are one of the largest and most influential Democratic constituencies — and no candidate can win the nomination or the White House without appealing to them more broadly than the party did in 2016.
“It makes a lot of sense that she was the one,” she said of Harris. “To me she can help unify the Democratic coalition we need to win.”
In 2019, Allison organized the first She The People rally in Houston at Texas Southern University, an ode to former Houston Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. That event put Harris and other early Democratic contenders for the White House before an audience of mostly women of color in an early test of who could connect with that critical base of voters.
For Harris, it would be one of three stops at TSU while she tried to build momentum in Texas — a state where her campaign never gained traction despite those early forays into Houston.
Still, those trips illustrated Harris’ ties to historically Black colleges and universities. Harris is a graduate of Howard University and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., which has 300,000 members and more than 1,000 local chapters.
“We’re ecstatic and supporting her 100 percent,” said Kristina Spencer, assistant secretary of the Alpha Kappa Alpha chapter in Spring. “We were hoping this day would come. We were strongly hoping she would be Joe Biden’s choice.”
Spencer said Harris has a reputation for fighting for the underprivileged and she likes that Harris doesn’t dodge tough questions.
“She is very direct. She is going to get to the point and she is not going to waver,” she said. “It’s what’s appealing to me. I don’t like for people to tell me one thing when I clearly know the other.”
Adams at TSU said there’s a chance Harris could generate energy down-ballot for MJ Hegar, a former Air Force pilot running against Cornyn, as well as Democrats who are trying to flip a handful of congressional seats in the suburbs.
Sri Kulkarni, a Democrat running in a competitive Fort Bend County congressional district, cheered the pick.
“This is for the South Asians who grew up seeing nobody that looked like them in government,” he tweeted. “It’s for those who questioned whether they belonged and whether their voice mattered. This is historic — America is on its way to true representation.”
Other Texas Democrats lament that Biden didn’t go with a more progressive VP pick to balance out the ticket.
Progressives not so happy
For Chris Chu de León, the former Texas director for the Bernie Sanders campaign, Harris doesn’t bring much to the table to persuade Sanders followers to get to the polls. He said a large faction of Sanders supporters are not happy with the pick.
“The general consensus is while Kamala adds much-needed diversity and representation to the ticket, her past prosecutorial record disproportionately locked up and criminalized Black and brown folks,” he said. “Most Bernie folks wanted Karen Bass, of the VP candidates Biden was considering.”
Sanders fell short in the Texas primary, but his influence on Texas politics was hard to miss. His advocacy for “Medicare for All” and college affordability didn’t just bring legions of young people to his campaign, but helped influence O’Rourke and other 2018 candidates. O’Rourke’s plans weren’t nearly as progressive as those of Sanders, but his movement brought legions of younger, energized voters to his campaign.
Democrats were hopeful Harris — and the historic moment her selection represents — will energize voters, as well.
At Biden and Harris’ first appearance together on Wednesday, Biden noted the historical significance of Harris on the ticket: “This morning, all across the nation, little girls woke up, especially little Black and brown girls, who so often feel overlooked and undervalued in their communities.
“But today just maybe they’re seeing themselves for the first time in a new way: as the stuff of president and vice presidents,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Houston Democrat, said Harris is a smart, forward-looking pick: “I could not be more optimistic for the future than I am today because Joe's choice reminds us that in America, the future is female.”