Over the past few weeks, two issues have emerged that Vice President Kamala Harris is well-equipped to address: abortion and gun rights. The leaked Supreme Court draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade has generated a political firestorm. A Marist poll finds 64 percent oppose reversing Roe, and 49 percent say that outcome would make them “more likely” to vote in the upcoming midterm elections.
The school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead has caused voters to shout, “Do Something!” Polls show 88 percent support background checks; 84 percent approve prohibiting selling firearms to anyone labeled dangerous by a mental health provider; 79 percent would ban gun purchases to those on the federal no-fly or watch lists; and 67 percent want an assault weapons ban to become law.
Harris is well-positioned to address these issues. Anticipating the Supreme Court ruling on Roe, an outraged Harris told supporters of the pro-abortion rights Emily’s List, “How dare they tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body.” As a former district attorney and state attorney general who sometimes referred to herself as the “top cop,” Harris described having “looked at the autopsy photographs. . .[and] seen with my own two eyes what a bullet can do to the human body.” Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher advises Democrats to make the midterms about “the angry mom” by focusing on abortion and gun violence. No one can do that better than Harris.
There has been a great deal of Washington chatter as to Harris’s weakened political position. But her standing within the Democratic Party is much stronger than the punditry suggests. If President Biden declines to seek a second term, Harris is well-positioned to win the 2024 Democratic nomination. Among African American voters, the most powerful bloc within the Democratic Party, 53 percent back Harris should Biden decline to run. Her nearest competitor is Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who received 13 percent. Belcher says of Harris, “I am amazed at how she’s running away from the field with African American voters this early on.” Surveys of all Democratic primary voters put Harris in the dominant position.
Yet history and polling strongly suggest that Democratic prospects in the upcoming elections are bleak. Today, the two-point Republican lead in the generic congressional ballot is the best the party has seen since 1938. Moreover, an ABC News/Ipsos poll finds a 20-point gap between Republicans and Democrats in their enthusiasm to cast a ballot. With numbers like these, Democrats are poised for what Barack Obama once called a “shellacking.”
The prospect of a devastating Democratic defeat comes at a perilous moment. As the Jan. 6 committee has reported, the conspiracy to overthrow the United States government is, in the words of Chairman Benny Thompson (D-Miss.), “not over.” Former President Trump, the leader of that conspiracy, has transformed the Republican Party in his image. The Republican National Committee has dutifully followed Trump’s lead, even calling the Jan. 6 insurrection “legitimate political discourse.” Each time Donald Trump has been counted out, he has bounced back. Today, 60 percent of Republicans say the party should follow Trump’s lead, and he is poised to win the Republican nomination in 2024.
Faced with these extraordinary circumstances, Democrats must take risks. One risk worth taking is having Harris challenge Trump to a joint television appearance. If Trump were to agree, this made-for-television moment would play to Harris’s strengths. In the Senate, Harris excelled at grilling hostile witnesses. One of her most memorable exchanges occurred when she quizzed an irate and stammering Attorney General William Barr for eight minutes over his handling of the Mueller investigation. That encounter went viral.
There is a precedent for such a debate. In 1993, Al Gore appeared with Ross Perot on CNN’s “Larry King Live” for a 90-minute discussion about whether the North American Free Trade Agreement should be ratified. Before accepting, Perot taunted President Clinton for “sending somebody else to do the dirty work.” Perot’s belief that he would easily prevail caused him to accept. But like Harris, Gore excelled in the rhetorical back-and-forth, and polling showed a convincing win: 64 percent said Gore “sounded more responsible”; 60 percent thought he “communicated better with you”; 56 percent said he was “more believable”; and 51 percent concluded Gore “did the best job.” Perot emerged diminished, and in 1996 his support fell from 19 percent four years before to just 8 percent. Both Perot and Trump were presidential candidates with outsized egos, and a joint Harris-Trump appearance could weaken Trump in the same manner it did Perot.
When fidelity to the Constitution is on the line, Democrats must take risks. Back when Gore issued his debate challenge to Perot, then-Rep. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) acknowledged, “When you’re behind, you roll the dice.” Today, the stakes are far higher. Biden and Harris are the last persons standing able to defend our constitutional democracy. Republicans are running candidates for state and local offices who want to seize power to determine future elections. Rep. Liz Cheney’s (R-Wyo.) message to Republicans, “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor remains,” is likely to be remembered by historians. But until then we are, as Bob Woodward and Robert Costa write, a nation in peril. Any chance to weaken Donald Trump should be seized. Harris can do that. A Harris-Trump debate is worth the gamble.
John Kenneth White is a professor of politics at the Catholic University of America. His latest book is “What Happened to the Republican Party?”