For more than 25 years, as they climbed the political ladder of politics in California and the nation, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris have acted like friendly colleagues, assiduously avoiding conflict.
They shared campaign consultants and a mentor in Willie Brown, the former state Assembly speaker and later San Francisco mayor. They’ve never butted heads, each always running for offices the other was either willing to bypass or ineligible to hold (Harris was San Francisco’s district attorney, which Newsom couldn’t be as a non-lawyer).
Now the cognitive problems of President Joe Biden are pushing them toward a possible rivalry. As pressure mounts for Biden to step away from the Democratic Party nomination for president, Harris and Newsom are on most short lists to replace him.
Harris has survived several close calls, including a razor-thin victory in her first run for California attorney general, and she’s never been an overwhelming vote-getter. Witness her early withdrawal from the 2020 Democratic primaries.
Newsom has had no trouble getting elected, winning all his runs by wide margins: twice for San Francisco mayor, lieutenant governor twice, governor twice and easily beating back the 2021 Republican-sponsored recall attempt.
Both are among the most vocal advocates for Biden even after his June 27 debate debacle, in which he appeared sometimes to lose focus and failed to challenge any of former President Donald Trump’s outright lies with specific information. One example came when Trump claimed Democrat-run states allow not just late-term abortions but also the killing of babies after they’re born.
No state allows this. It is murder everywhere. Biden did not say that, though. It was his best chance to show 50 million viewers just how blatant Trump’s lies can be. It was a blown opportunity.
This is one cause of the pressure now mounting on Biden to bow out and let delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August choose someone else. Such pressure cannot get much stronger than the firm call from the New York Times editorial board for Biden to step down.
Surviving that call will be much harder for Biden than for Trump to survive a similar demand from the Philadelphia Inquirer that he step down because of his incessant stream of falsehoods. If they were not from the same state, even the same city, Newsom and Harris might team up as a possible replacement for today’s Biden-Harris ticket.
They can’t be on the ticket together, though. American history has never had a same-state White House ticket, and many scholars believe it would be unconstitutional. This is one thing making Trump hesitate to pick Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as his running mate, with Trump’s official residence also in Florida.
Who else could Democrats tap aside from Newsom or Harris, both of whom are now performing credibly in speaking for Biden after his debate problems? Harris sticks up for Biden while also conceding that the debate was “not his finest moment.”
Newsom, already Biden’s leading surrogate, was strategically present in the “spin room” after that debate, repeatedly denying interest in replacing Biden. Newsom offered no General Sherman-like statement, though, of “if nominated, I will not run” or “if elected, I will not serve.”
Yes, Democrats could tap someone like Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who are both popular in their states. No Democrat other than Newsom and Harris has national debate experience, though, with Newsom having taken on Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis last fall while neither was actively seeking office.
Newsom is also the only Democrat to use his own campaign money for TV commercials backing Democrats and excoriating Republicans in red states like Alabama and Florida. Newsom also has campaigned not only for Biden but for many other Democrats.
Harshly criticized by the California GOP for recording and distributing his State of the State speech rather than delivering it live, Newsom may have had a good instinct since that speech could serve as a Democratic Party manifesto by maintaining that progressive values are the best antidote for excesses of the far right represented by Trump.
All of this means Harris and Newsom are prepped and ready to step in more than perhaps anyone else if Biden drops out.
Email Thomas Elias at [email protected], and read more of his columns online at californiafocus.net.