Chatter about replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the Democrat ticket with several different Democrat governors is reportedly irking those in Vice President Kamala Harris’s orbit, with one source saying the discussions send an underlying message the party desires a “white” candidate, according to a report.
Politico reported the sour feelings within Harris’s camp as Govs. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) have been at the forefront of media speculation as to who could potentially replace Biden at the top of the ticket if Biden were actually to step aside.
The article points to Govs. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) and Josh Shapiro (D-PA) as other politicians mentioned as potential alternatives to Biden.
Behind the scenes, Harris allies are “expressing frustration that her name is not being mentioned in the same company as other ambitious Democrats,” wrote Politico’s Eugene Daniels, Jennifer Haberkorn, and Myah Ward. One source charged it is “offensive.”
“The fact that people keep coming back to this is so offensive to so many of us,” one Harris ally told the outlet. “They still don’t get that the message you’re saying to people, to this Democratic Party, is, we prefer a white person.”
“If they think they are going to get through South Carolina bashing an effective and qualified Black woman vice president — their instincts are as bad as I thought they were,” added a second source.
As his running mate and vice president, Harris is tethered to Biden in ways that other prominent Democrats are not. Following his disastrous showing, she was left to defend him on national television.
Harris appeared on CNN’s post-debate coverage, where host Anderson Cooper asked if “the president we saw tonight on the stage” is how Biden is regularly.
She responded by trying to shift the discussion to their administration’s record, which Harris aides, speaking anonymously, told Politico was the plan.
She said:
The Joe Biden that I work with every day, is someone who, as I have said, has performed in a way that has been about bringing people into the Oval Office, Republicans and Democrats, to compromise in a way that is extraordinary these days, because it just doesn’t happen, but Joe Biden can make it happen. The Joe Biden I see is someone who goes to our allies around the world and strengthens NATO to the point that there are two new members of NATO, who, just about four years ago, people said, [does] NATO even have a reason for existing? The Joe Biden I know is someone who has delivered 800,000 new manufacturing jobs and [is] bringing manufacturing back to the United States, not shipping jobs out, like Donald Trump did. So, that’s the Joe Biden I know.
Newsom, who is a campaign surrogate, also notably defended Biden in the spin room after the debate, claiming Biden won on “substance.”
However, the indication is that Biden does not plan to step aside. The Biden family huddled at Camp David over the weekend to reportedly assess Biden’s political standing, as Breitbart News reported. Sources told the New York Times the whole “family is united” behind Biden remaining in the race and that no discussions were held about potentially dropping out.
The campaign will reportedly employ a change in strategy on the communications front, including an increase in interviews and media appearances, Breitbart News noted.
