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WASHINGTON — Gone are Joe Biden’s dark warnings about the life-and-death stakes for American democracy.
Instead, Kamala Harris talks animatedly about protecting abortion rights and capping drug costs, lowering inflation and boosting the middle class.
Whereas Biden dwelled on the MAGA movement’s threat to democracy, Harris is delivering a sunnier vision of a nation made up of “neighbors, not enemies.”
Less than three weeks after Biden pulled out of the presidential race, his successor is in the early stages of retooling his campaign message, making it her own.
Harris is differentiating herself from Biden, amplifying positions that reflect her own priorities and commitment to running what she calls a “joyful” campaign. She expects to roll out more defined plans for what she’d do at the start of a presidential term, giving voters a clearer picture of how she would govern, people close to her said.
As early as next week, Harris will begin to highlight unfinished pieces of Biden’s agenda that she’d champion as president, including universal child care, paid family leave, affordable housing and a minimum wage increase, according to a person familiar with the discussion, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“She’s going to say we’re all in this together. Bringing people together is what the country needs, and it’s great f—— politics,” said Jim Messina, who managed Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
No one in Harris’ orbit expects her to repudiate Biden’s policies. As vice president, Harris is tethered to his record — good parts and bad.
A recent campaign ad from a Democratic super PAC described how Harris had “fought to cap the price of insulin” at $35 a month — crediting her with what Biden has long touted as one of his signature accomplishments.
What’s more, Biden and his heir apparent remain on good terms. Biden will appear at a joint campaign event with Harris in the coming weeks, one of his advisers said. He will also raise money for her and meet with parts of the Democratic coalition to elevate her candidacy, this person said.
Amid signs that his approval rating is rising now that he’s no longer on the ballot, Biden is potentially a valuable campaign partner, Democratic strategists said. Vice President Al Gore shunned the popular if scandal-prone Bill Clinton when he ran for president in 2000. It would be a mistake for Harris to do something similar, strategists said.
A Marist College poll taken after Biden left the race found that his approval rating, while still below his disapproval rating, had risen to 46% — his highest number in 2½ years.
“He’s at ease speaking with the same kind of voters that she’s going to need to be able to appeal to the Midwest,” said Maria Cardona, a Democratic strategist.
A few clues suggest where Harris’ and Biden’s priorities might diverge. Biden took pains to showcase the brick-and-mortar infrastructure upgrade that he ushered into law. So fixated was he on road projects that his former White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, said privately that he was spending too much time talking about bridges, according to audio obtained by Politico.
Harris seems more impassioned about the “care economy,” a suite of policies meant to ease financial burdens on those raising children and looking after elderly and disabled people, among other things.
Her early speeches as the Democratic standard-bearer lean heavily into helping middle-class families who are struggling with high grocery and gas prices — real-world problems that may be more immediate and worrying to many voters than the democracy’s durability.
Harris built to a rhetorical climax in a speech in Philadelphia on Tuesday when she vowed to fight for a woman’s freedom “to make decisions about her own body, not having the government tell her what to do!”
Biden, a practicing Catholic, struggled with the issue of abortion and remained uneasy discussing it on the stump. As a woman, Harris can speak more fluently about restoring a right that a conservative Supreme Court majority stripped away, her supporters say.
“Any woman knows what it is like to suggest that the government should tell us what we can do with our bodies,” California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis said in an interview. “Whether it’s a candidate for president or the voter on the ground, we viscerally understand what this issue means to us. So, naturally, she is the best champion on restoring women’s freedom in this country.”
“Freedom” is the umbrella word Harris uses in discussing what’s at stake in the election, including what she sees as former President Donald Trump’s threat to democracy, a member of her team said.
Biden used the same word, though he tended to stress the danger that Trump posed, whereas Harris points to the possibilities that would open up if Democrats keep the White House.
Harris mentioned “democracy” only once in her speech in Philadelphia the day after she formally captured the Democratic Party’s nomination. And that was in the context of how it empowers people to decide the future for themselves.
A more prominent part of the speech was how Trump might unravel health care reforms that ensure patients are covered for pre-existing conditions.
“The way she thinks about it is ‘freedom’ is an easier way for people to understand how they’re being personally impacted,” a member of her team said, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk about internal discussions. “‘Freedom’ is an easier way to understand what it means for democracy to be under threat.”
Foreign policy is an arena in which Harris may hew most closely to Biden. A senior White House official said there isn’t a lot of daylight between them, with both agreeing on the importance of maintaining the network of overseas alliances whose value Trump questions.
A speech that Harris gave four days after Biden quit the race suggests a subtle difference in their approaches to the war in Gaza, however.
She echoed many of the arguments Biden has made: Her support for Israel is unwavering, she said.
But a different point caught the attention of the Arab American community. Harris said she wouldn’t “be silent” about the suffering of Palestinian civilians. Her boss, by contrast, faced blowback from parts of the Democratic coalition for appearing inured to civilian deaths in Gaza.
“She showed something that the president has really struggled with — and that is empathy,” said Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a foreign policy think tank. “The president has not really been able to empathize with Palestinians. And that’s something you can’t fake.”
On July 30, Harris arrived in Atlanta for a rally. Posing for photos offstage, she met Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian American Georgia state representative.
Romman asked Harris for a few minutes to talk directly, and she agreed. Romman told Harris that the Israeli bombardment of Gaza must stop.
“We don’t have a full picture of what her position on this issue is,” Romman said in an interview. “I do think that it does matter to have someone who, at bare minimum, is willing to listen.”
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