Democrats have two big 2024 problems: What if Biden runs again? And what if he doesn’t run again?
The latter is a problem, in large part, because of Kamala Harris. Jonathan Martin reports in his Politico column that Democrats are, uh, unenthusiastic about her picking up the mantle:
In California, Cheryl Hartvigsen expressed similar sentiments about Biden’s re-election. “If he wants to,” Hartvigsen said, before musing with no prompting that she wished “we had a stronger vice president” because Biden would “feel more confident that he has a good back-up.”
It was the only time a Democrat, in either state, brought up Kamala Harris. Asked who intrigued them for 2024 were Biden not to run, the most common names offered by the voters were Govs. Gavin Newsom of California and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan along with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
If Democratic voters have barely started to consider Biden alternatives, the topic is increasingly consuming the would-be successors themselves, as well as their spouses. Doug Emhoff, the Second Gentleman, has told Democrats the party must rally around Harris should Biden not run.
Such talk, however, causes eye-rolling in the West Wing, where officials believe Harris is on stronger footing now than she was in her first year but remain skeptical about her viability in 2024.
Those doubts are shared by most Democratic lawmakers, whose dread about 2024 extends from the specter of nominating an octogenarian with dismal approval ratings to the equally delicate dilemma of whether to nominate his more unpopular vice president or pass over the first Black woman in the job.
“The next question we’ll get after saying we don’t want Biden is: ‘Do you want Kamala?’” explained one House Democrat.
Another lawmaker, in a little-noticed October interview, demonstrated how Democrats may sidestep the issue going forward. Asked on New Hampshire’s WMUR whether she wants Biden to run again, Rep. Annie Kuster of the first-in-the-nation primary state, said, “I don’t think he will” before trumpeting the party’s “big bench of very, very qualified people.”