Spending less time in the Senate could boost Harris in 2023
Katherine Doyle
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The slightly larger Democratic Senate majority could boost Vice President Kamala Harris in the run-up to the 2024 elections after well-documented struggles during her first two years in office have caused skepticism over her readiness for a bigger role.
Locked in an evenly divided Senate since President Joe Biden took office, Democrats have depended on Harris to break more than two dozen ties. But the party gained an extra seat in November. Historian Joel Goldstein said this and other developments “should work to her advantage during the next two years.”
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“Since the Senate is no longer 50-50, her schedule will not be hostage to the Senate calendar in the way it has been,” said Goldstein, a professor emeritus at St. Louis University School of Law.
There are more changes to come that could help Harris bypass skepticism as the potential future leader of the Democratic Party.
Now 80, Biden took office as the oldest presidential candidate to be elected. An announcement by the president over his reelection plans would ease speculation over whether his vice president is prepared to step into his shoes.
“Should … Biden announce that he’ll seek a second term, [Harris’s] immediate future will clarify in a way that will focus attention on her as vice president, not as a future presidential candidate,” Goldstein said.
Calls for Biden to step aside have waned since Washington Post columnist George Will said before the midterm elections that to nominate Biden and Harris again would “insult and imperil the nation.”
Harris still faces considerable scrutiny.
Asked about the vice president’s efforts to slow migration to the southern border, a portfolio assignment assigned to her last year by Biden, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that she didn’t “have anything to lay out specifically on what that work looks like.”
The question came as the government prepared for a record swell of migrants attempting to reach the United States illegally with Title 42 under threat and as Harris, in a December interview with NPR, placed the blame on Republicans.
The vice president drew attention to her handling of the issue earlier this year after calling the border “secure” twice during a September interview with NBC’s Meet the Press.
At the time, border agents were apprehending tens of thousands more illegal immigrants than in the same month one year prior, federal data showed.
Biden charged Harris early on with slowing the tide of immigrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, likening it to his role leading foreign policy in the Central American region as vice president in the Obama administration while a migration crisis was similarly underway.
Harris’s handling of migration and other areas has led to tension with the White House.
Learning that her husband, Doug Emhoff, had complained about Harris’s portfolio, “Biden was annoyed. He hadn’t asked Harris to do anything he hadn’t done as vice president,” a forthcoming book by Chris Whipple obtained by Politico’s West Wing Playbook reported.
A friend of the president told Whipple that Biden had described Harris as “a work in progress.”
Politico reported in November that efforts by Harris’s husband to edge out the vice president’s possible shadow competitors drew “eye-rolling” inside the White House.
Democrats are already eyeing alternatives to Harris as she prepares to enter her third year in office.
A Punchbowl News poll found that 52% of Democratic senior staffers on Capitol Hill expect Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to be the Democratic Party nominee in 2024 if Biden chooses not to run.
Next ranked Harris with 39% of the vote, followed by Govs. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) with 38% and Gavin Newsom (D-CA) with 29%.
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It remains hard to gauge Harris’s prospects, which will depend on the success of the administration through the end of Biden’s term, said Goldstein.
“The vice presidency is the best presidential springboard, and it has elevated her stature as it did for many others, including people as disparate as President Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence,” he said. “But being vice president doesn’t guarantee a clear path to nomination or nomination. Her future depends on the success of the Biden administration and perceptions of her performance as vice president as well as a range of factors beyond her control.”