Does Harris have a real chance at the US presidency?

Vilifying political opponents on the basis of their age, appearance, gender and skin colour has been the weapon of choice for leaders of the Republican Party in recent election cycles.

No wonder US Vice President Kamala Harris came under repeated attacks tinged with racist innuendos and sexist tropes by Republican politicians as soon as President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 race last Sunday.

Tim Burchett, Congressman from the US state of Tennessee, called Harris a “DEI vice president” while using the initialism for “diversity, equity and inclusion”—an umbrella term for programmes that public and private sectors use for promoting people from historically underrepresented groups in workplaces.

The pejorative use of the term by the Republican Congressman was meant to belittle the vice president as a recipient of preferential treatment in the name of disadvantaged groups.

“The media propped up [Biden], lied to the American people for three years, and then dumped him for our DEI vice president,” Burchett said, implying Harris became vice president by extracting undue concessions as a Black woman at the cost of “white females”.

Perceived bias

Dr Mona Moufahim, an expert of political marketing based in the University of Stirling, tells TRT World that successful people from ethnic minorities are often depicted as beneficiaries of a supposed bias—dubbed ‘positive discrimination’ and ‘affirmative action’—even when there’s little evidence that it’s indeed the case.

This narrative is readily accepted by those who see themselves “kicked to the curb” as they battle unemployment or limited future prospects while “diverse” employees are unfairly handed opportunities in the name of racial inclusion, she says.

Daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, Harris became the first Asian, female and Black US vice president in 2021.

“We have seen how the staunch [former president Donald] Trump supporters and rightwing media depicted and attacked Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election. I don’t see them being better disposed towards Harris, a woman of colour and daughter of immigrants,” Dr Moufahim says.

New narrative

The University of Nottingham-based political branding expert, Dr Christopher Pich, tells TRT World that Trump and the Republican Party have ramped up their attacks on Harris to shape a new narrative in the minds of swing voters.

“They appear to be arguing Harris is a ‘DEI politician’. They want to discredit Harris and project her as unserious, weak, out-of-touch and out of her depth. Trump, on the other hand, continues to present himself as a strong, charismatic, in-touch, statesmanlike unifier out to save America,” he says.

Pich notes that Harris still has the opportunity to “communicate what she stands for” and project clear points of differentiation from Trump. “This, in turn, may encourage swing voters to identify with Harris’s mission and agenda. Trump should not underestimate his political rival,” he says.

The voting pattern among swing voters will likely be shaped by the one-on-one debate between the two candidates scheduled for September 10.

Trump initially agreed to two one-on-one presidential debates with Biden. But the president dropped out of the race after his poor performance in the first debate turned the spotlight on his worsening health condition.

It’s yet to be seen if Harris takes part in the final one-on-one debate with Trump, who’s known for his crude and insulting debating style. The second debate will provide Trump with an opportunity to paint his Democratic rival as a DEI politician in front of a national audience.

Fierce debater

Meanwhile, Harris will lean on her background as an attorney and cross-examiner in Senate hearings to overwhelm Trump, a felon recently convicted on 34 counts by a jury of peers.

Dr Pich of the University of Nottingham says it remains unclear what debating strategy Trump will adopt while sharing a stage with Harris. Will it be similar to Trump’s recent debate with Biden when Trump was “calm, serious, [and] projected a statesman-like demeanour and professional tone”?

Or will his approach be similar to the one he adopted when he debated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 where Trump was “direct… aggressive, crude, insulting and rude,” Dr Pich asks.

“I imagine we’ll see a mixture of the two—perhaps a dual strategy, which will be shaped by opinion polls, differentiated on a state-by-state basis and tailored for different audiences,” he says.