It now appears that the Democrat establishment has no other choice but to nominate Kamala Harris as their replacement for Joe Biden at the top of their 2024 presidential ticket. The same self-inflicted identity politics constraints which led to her becoming the vice presidential nominee in 2020, now ensure her becoming the last-minute choice of the Democrats’ national convention in Chicago next month.
While Mr. Biden’s promise to name a “black woman” as his running mate in 2020 restricted his choice to only very few possibilities, Kamala Harris can choose from a much larger group.
Her challenge, however, will be to convince a Democrat who has aspirations for higher office to join her on the ticket. Joe Biden became president in 2020 and Kamala Harris became vice president. Winning vice presidents have good possibilities to later win the presidency; e.g., Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush, and Joe Biden.
But as good as history has been for winning vice presidential candidates, it has been decidedly ominous for losing vice presidential candidates. For more than 100 years, no losing vice president nominee has been elected president. The last one who did was Franklin Roosevelt, who lost running for vice president in 1920, but won the presidency in 1932. Meanwhile, Estes Kefauver (1956), Ed Muskie (1968), Bob Dole (1976) Walter Mondale (1980), Dan Quayle (1992), Jack Kemp (1996), Joe Lieberman (2000), and John Edwards (2004) were all losing vice presidential picks who later ran for president and lost. (Mondale and Quayle, it should be noted, did win the vice presidency for one term, but lost re-election.)
Someone who ran for his party’s vice presidential nomination in 1956, but lost it, and then did run for president successfully was John F. Kennedy. It is likely that had Kennedy won the nomination in 1956, and lost that election, he would not have been elected president in 1960.
The “curse” of losing vice presidential nominees has lasted for a century. It is apparently the ultimate political dead end.
Despite the coming super-hype by the media for Kamala Harris, and the “unity” of her party behind her last-minute candidacy, it will soon become apparent she will not likely win in 2024. Her often disjointed and undecipherable public statements are commonplace, and her retail politics skills are modest at best.
A number of running mates have been floated for her upcoming 2024 campaign. For “balance” purposes, most of them are white males, and they initially included Governor Gavin Newsom of California, Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona.
Except for Senator Kelly, these figures are known to have presidential aspirations in 2028. Governor Newsom is from the same state as Harris, which presents a constitutional obstacle. Shapiro, Cooper or Kelly might tip the scale in their home states, but might not attract many votes elsewhere. Governor Shapiro’s strong support for Israel likely would be a negative in Michigan and perhaps in other states.
The losing vice presidential candidate “curse” could put a Harris running mate at a disadvantage in 2028 rather than giving him a leg up on rivals.
Since most of the names being put forward are effective retail politicians, in the daily focus of a campaign there is also the risk of a vice presidential nominee outshining or upstaging Harris.
The general voting public has good reason to feel they were deliberately deceived about President Biden by the Democrat establishment, the
biased national media, and especially Harris herself. The hype for the Harris candidacy, already underway, could be treated more skeptically than in the past, creating a campaign environment many or all of the figures named so far for vice president might be reluctant to enter, especially if the odds are significant that they probably cannot win.
Someone, of course, will be on the ticket with Kamala Harris in November. But as George McGovern learned in 1972, last-minute choices can hurt more than they can help.
