Harris’ two main agenda items are voting rights and migration stemming from the Northern Triangle countries in Central America. Both are thorny topics with few easy solutions. And because of the absence of clear progress on both, Harris has become the subject of criticism from both the right and the left. Indeed, there are other potential candidates who have been making national splashes on both those fronts.
If she runs and wins the Governor’s Mansion in Georgia next year, Democratic operatives expect her to at least consider a White House bid. Other Democrats across the country have also recruited her to send out emails given her draw among the party’s base and her potency as an online fundraiser.
Meanwhile, Harris’ “do not come” warning to migrants earlier this year, while the official stance of the administration, has earned the ire of some Latino circles. Famed journalist Jorge Ramos penned a furious column after her remarks, with the question: “What would have happened if a U.S. politician had told Harris’ Indian mother or her Jamaican father not to come to the United States to study?”
At the same time, former presidential candidate Julian Castro has frequently appeared on television to critique the administration on its immigration platform and stake out a more humane border enforcement policy.
Charles Burson, who served as Vice President Al Gore’s White House chief of staff during his presidential run, says Harris still has time to take on a big portfolio item that isn’t “impossible” and could allow her to “[elevate her] profile where the party and the nation looks to you as the leader.”
And with a 50-50 Senate, Harris has been forced to stay near D
For now, Harris is operating in a media environment where “there’s this assumption that a vice president’s going to clear the field,” said Joel K. Goldstein, author of “The White House Vice Presidency: The Path to Significance, Mondale to Biden.” Goldstein added that the ability to use the vice presidency as a springboard milf hookups to the nomination and eventually the White House is an advantage almost every potential candidate would take over being a senator or even Cabinet secretary.
Abrams, who has been deliberate in maintaining her relationships with national Democrats and their donors, is directly associated with voting rights as an issue
“The trade-off is you get the chance to sit in the situation room and to be the last person in the room and to go off to France and meet with [Emmanuel] Macron,” Goldstein said. But on the other hand, vice presidents inherit the popularity or unpopularity of the administration, and arguably the biggest challenge is “emerging from the president’s shadow [and] preserving the idea that you’re a leader and not just a follower,” he says.
While others can operate on their own – or in Buttigieg’s case, end up leading one of the administration’s most popular bipartisan laws – Harris’ vice presidency is more of a senior adviser role. It has given her proximity to the president but also placed her political future in the backseat as she toes the administration line. Allies note that voters don’t see Harris in many of her roles or hear the advice she provides to Biden in the Oval Office – putting her at the whims of public perception and media coverage of the role she’s playing. C. to potentially cast tie-breaking votes on Biden nominees. That’s limited her capacity to do public outreach although she has traveled to New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada in her first year – critical early states in a presidential primary.