We’re All the KHive Now

After a nearly monthlong “will he or won’t he” saga that benefited few people other than Donald Trump, Joe Biden finally dropped out of the presidential race on Sunday and threw his support behind Kamala Harris, making her the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. It prompted a great sigh of relief among many Democrats, who had been grateful for everything Biden had achieved but still held major doubts about his capacity to campaign and serve another term. In particular, they worried that the president would not be able to clearly make the case against Trump. And who better to prosecute that very same case than Harris, a highly accomplished prosecutor herself?

The previous few weeks had been demoralizing for Democrats. The party watched its beloved leader crater in the polls while enduring dozens of drip-drip defections by lawmakers in the House and Senate, who worried Biden would drag down the rest of the ticket in swing states like Nevada, Georgia, and Michigan. All of the Democratic disarray eventually became the A-plot of America’s election drama, even if the race should have always been a referendum on Trump and his authoritarian vision threatening to dismantle democracy. But even before the party’s great reckoning—before the president’s dreadful debate in June—Biden had a big problem with American voters, especially young ones. (In fact, the youth electorate has long felt disconnected from both Biden and Trump, the two oldest major party candidates ever to run for president.)

That’s why Sunday’s bombshell might have felt, to some, inevitable. Biden, facing overwhelming intraparty pressure, simply chose the quickest and cleanest alternative. He bowed out, salvaged his presidential legacy, and endorsed the vice president (as he should have), unleashing a cascade of Harris endorsements by party royalty like Hillary and Bill Clinton, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, and Amy Klobuchar, as well as more than 200 congressional Democrats. Harris has also already claimed the backing of every delegate for North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. (Still, she has yet to see explicit support from Barack Obama, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries.)

Before Biden elevated Harris, there were many potential replacements in the mix, including Newsom, Whitmer, Pete Buttigieg, and Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker. And yet this was always just another situation in which a woman of color was more qualified than her white counterparts. In 2003, Harris, the daughter of immigrants, became the first female and person of color elected as district attorney of San Francisco, where she successfully ran against then incumbent Terence Hallinan and later won reelection. During this time, she was a big advocate for abortion rights—and a champion of same-sex marriage well before it was legalized by the Supreme Court. After a commendable career in statewide office, Harris became the second Black woman to ever serve in the Senate, where she famously held Brett Kavanaugh’s feet to the fire at his confirmation hearing and delivered key remarks during Trump’s 2020 impeachment trial. Roughly a year later, she made history yet again—by becoming the country’s first female vice president.

Harris’s political ascendance hasn’t always been smooth. During her failed 2020 presidential bid, she was weighed down by her centrism as well as her prosecutorial experience. Her campaign floundered as police brutality was front of mind for much of the younger, more progressive wing of the Democratic Party. But now those same attributes that gave left-wing activists pause could actually be beneficial in a general election against someone who has a criminal history. After all, who better to run on law and order than someone who upheld both?

I reached a similar conclusion back in September 2022, when I interviewed Harris for Vanity Fair in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where she reflected on several points of pride in her political pedigree. “I spent the majority of my career, not in Washington, DC, but as a prosecutor, and a majority of that time was a focus on what we need to do to protect women and children and keep them safe and be concerned about their well-being,” she told me. “For me, this is part of the lifelong commitment to these issues, but it is also about understanding that there are, right now on this issue, some very powerful people that are trampling on the rights of some of the most vulnerable people in our country.” It’s hard to think of a person who is more opposite to Donald Trump than Kamala Harris—someone who has dedicated her life to protecting the kind of vulnerable women who have accused the former president of sexual misconduct. (Trump has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct.)

When Harris quickly emerged as the consensus choice to be the Democratic nominee this weekend, something happened that I was not expecting: The base was reenergized. In just five short hours after Harris announced her bid, the party raised more than $27.5 million in small-dollar donations (and it raised more than $50 million in the course of the day after Biden revealed his exit). Not to mention, it put Trumpworld, which was prepared to run against Biden, on its back feet. When the former president was competing with Biden, who is three and half years his senior, Trump was successfully able to paint him as senile and effete, however true that characterization might have been. But now Trump has to reexamine his entire approach as he faces off with someone who is younger, sharper, and far more experienced in different realms of government service than he will ever be.