CHICAGO — Democrats are encouraging Vice President Kamala Harris to stick to the political center as former President Donald Trump tries to undercut her as a San Francisco liberal and radical leftist.
But as protests continue over the war in Gaza before the conflict’s first anniversary in October, Harris may come under increasing pressure to appeal to more liberal Democrats in order to win November’s election.
Harris’s acceptance of the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination underscored more centrist policy positions than the ones she ran on the last time she was a presidential candidate during the 2020 cycle.
“I refuse to play politics with our security,” she told the Democratic National Convention last week in Chicago. “As commander in chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world. And I will fulfill our sacred obligation to care for our troops and their families, and I will always honor and never disparage their service and their sacrifice.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) also made sure to emphasize Harris’s centrist policy stances to reporters backstage at the United Center after he himself addressed the convention, with Harris untested by a traditional primary process.
“Harris is right down the middle in terms of caring about working people, doing real things to help them,” Schumer said, citing her desire to decrease the cost of housing.
White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs Director Tom Perez similarly referenced Harris’s record as part of President Joe Biden‘s administration, including capping the price of insulin at $35 for eligible people.
“I don’t know what you’d call that. I call that smart policy,” Perez, a former Democratic National Committee chairman and former President Barack Obama‘s labor secretary, told the Washington Examiner. “When we’re trying to negotiate with Big Pharma successfully and now we’re bringing down the cost of 10 more prescription drugs, the label I put on that is smart policy that lowers costs and saves taxpayers’ money. That’s what she’s going to be talking about, an agenda that’s both for the future and for the people and not for the people who are the one percenters but for folks who are everyday Americans trying to get a fair shake and make ends meet.”
Georgia Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, the highest-ranking Democrat in the Peach State, which is in reach of the party again because of Harris, advised the vice president to go “straight,” describing her as the “underdog” considering “the way that she started.”
“She started in the back of the line, but she was skipped right to the front of the line, so she’s got to make up all the middle,” Butler told the Washington Examiner at a Georgia breakfast. “You know what your goal is, so you keep for that goal. It’s just like a plane landing on the runway. It does not veer to the right. It does not veer to the left. It just keeps straight. Because if we start doing this, it’s off-course. So that’s what she’s doing. She’s keeping it on course.”
Marcus Flowers, who unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in 2022, contended that Harris preferred to be known as “a fighter who’s fighting for democracy in the face of those who would see democracy come to an end.”
“I’ve heard all of the attacks. I’ve heard she’s a radical leftist,” Flowers told the Washington Examiner. “These are all things that Trump is saying. And you know what? At the end of the day, we don’t care. We’ve got a job to do. We’ve got to go out and talk to people, talk to people about what’s important in their lives.”
“We know who she is,” he said. “She’s been a prosecutor, a district attorney, attorney general for the state of California, a senator, and a vice president. She is overqualified for this job, so we’re not listening to what Trump’s talking about.”
DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston criticized how politicians and candidates are pushed “to choose one or the other, that there can’t be a balance of these things” regarding their policy platform.
Of the pressure Harris may face from the Left, Boston implored those people to remember there is a low likelihood of any politician or candidate checking off “every single policy box for an individual,” particularly concerning the Israel–Hamas war.
“That’s great if they do, right? But it’s not likely because we are a people of all diverse ideas and opinions,” she told the Washington Examiner. “What we have to look at and say is: ‘Does this person have our core value system at play? Are they going to make decisions based on the law and fairness and compassion and making sure that we’re lifting up everyone?’”
During her convention address, Harris did make overtures to the Left through economic and immigration policies, in addition to her approach to Gaza.
“I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on Oct. 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival,” the vice president said. “At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.”
In response to the scrutiny of Harris and the protests outside the convention’s perimeter, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) asserted “there’s no difference” between liberal and centrist Democrats “because progressive just means we’re fighting for progress.”
“Conservative means we’re conserving the best from the past, and we’re doing both,” Raskin told the Washington Examiner at a Maryland breakfast.
Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), speculated to be a possible 2028 presidential candidate, dismissed Trump’s attempts to undermine Harris as “noise.”
“We’ve got to be better than that,” Beshear told the Washington Examiner outside a DNC Rural Council meeting. “We’ve got to be back, get back to being Americans first, understanding that there are a lot of nonpartisan issues that we can work together on and then argue about everything else.”
Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) added that Harris closed the “gap” between Biden and Trump in Pennsylvania when the president was the nominee.
“The reality is that’s because I think folks are excited about her, they’re excited about her candidacy, and they’re excited about the vision that she’s begun to lay out for the future,” Shapiro said.
Regardless of the push and pull between the center and the Left, Michigan delegate Nicole Wells Stallworth and Delaware delegate Gemma Lowery urged Harris to be “authentic,” which some critics say she was not during her 2020 campaign.
“That’s the thing that we don’t want to miss out on when we select a leader and a president, someone who is authentic, someone who has lived experiences that we can all relate to — that’s not going to fit in anyone’s box every time,” Wells Stallworth, 47, told the Washington Examiner at a Michigan breakfast.
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“If that is where you lean, stay there, because if you do anything else, that comes across as disingenuous,” Lowery, 55, continued at a women’s caucus meeting. “It looks like you’re flipping to get the win. We’ve had that in politics. We’ve had that ‘go to this community and say this, go to that community.’ The other side’s doing it while they hand out golden sneakers and money to get people to show up. So, no, I think she should stay true to herself and explain the why it matters to you that she believes what she believes.”
