Kamala Harris for President appreciation thread

[Crazy Anglican]

Now that Trump can't bash his opponent's senility, he's resorted to very out-of-touch attacks on Harris' racial identity.

I suppose how out of touch it is largely depends on his intended audience. It doesn't speak to your traditional white middle class Democrat audience, but nothing he says ever will. It's also not the sort of thing that will make an impression on your core Republican voter one way or the other. My suspicion is that it is targeted at elements of the working class black community who are already wary of how a multi-millionaire lass with a mixed race family is going to understand their reality.

It's entirely possible that I'm way off the mark here, but I'd be somewhat surprised if this angle of discourse hadn't been well researched for potential impact prior to Trump saying it.

I think it's more of an out of touch with reality thing. Trump's lawyers are trying to make a case that Kamala's "Prosecutor vs. felon" characterization of the campaign is false while Trump himself is claiming that Harris is "Black all of the sudden".

[Octavious]

Of course, luck is going to play a large part. If Kamala is seen as being at the wheel (and I don't know how things feel in the US, but over here it's almost as if Biden has gone already. Every now and then he'll get mentioned in the news and you think "oh yeah, he's still the President") when certain things go tits up, it's likely to go badly for her. The economy is suddenly making creaking noises, which must be a tad alarming

[Crazy Anglican]

Harris Walz 2024!

Honesty I don't know much about Walz, other than he got under the Republicans' skins by calling them weird. I'll have to find out more about him. Hopefully not a basket case the way that Vance has turned out to be.

[Octavious]

It seems like both candidates have adopted the strategy of making sure they don't risk getting a running mate who might look like a better candidate than they are... It was one hell of a challenge to find people that uninspiring, but credit where credit's due I think they've both pulled it off

[Trigfea63]

Harris Walz 2024!

Honesty I don't know much about Walz, other than he got under the Republicans' skins by calling them weird. I'll have to find out more about him. Hopefully not a basket case the way that Vance has turned out to be.

I just read his Wikipedia page. Not sure there's too much more to know about him. Mainly, he's a white man from the Midwest. He served in the Army National Guard for 24 years.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

There have been huge Dem gains since Harris got on the ticket: https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/6867/Which-party-will-win-the-2024-US-presidential-election

Thank God they dumped Biden — shame on the party and media figures who tried to bully the public into ignoring his mental decline. Even if Harris isn't strictly the best possible opponent to Trump, she just might be good enough.

I was previously steeling myself for a Trump win. Now I'm tentatively hopeful that won't happen. Will be very interesting to see how MAGA-land might respond to another electoral loss and what a post-Trump Republican party might look like.

[Octavious]

She might be good enough. How she handles herself in the debate(s) relative to Trump will likely be crucial.

Oh a question for those of you more knowledgeable about the US constitution and it's various tweaks and rewritings. If Kamala had taken over from Biden as president and ended his current term early (or indeed if she is forced to do so in the coming months), would that count as her first term and limit her to only standing once, or is the two term limit a limit on the number of times you can be elected rather than the number of times you can be president?

[Jamiet99uk]

She might be good enough. How she handles herself in the debate(s) relative to Trump will likely be crucial.

Oh a question for those of you more knowledgeable about the US constitution and it's various tweaks and rewritings. If Kamala had taken over from Biden as president and ended his current term early (or indeed if she is forced to do so in the coming months), would that count as her first term and limit her to only standing once, or is the two term limit a limit on the number of times you can be elected rather than the number of times you can be president?

Oddly despite being a Brit, I know the answer to this, because some of my American friends were discussing it last week.

The answer is in the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

The underlined text is the answer to your question, Oct. To summarise the answer, if a Vice-President steps into the Presidency without being elected, it depends how long they serve before the next applicable election takes place.

To give real examples from the past:

Gerald Ford took over from Richard Nixon before the mid-point of Nixon's second presidency, and served for 895 days. This meant that Ford's term as president from 1974 to 1976 did count as a "first term" for the purposes of the 22nd Amendment. Therefore, if Ford had won re-election in 1976, he would have been ineligible to stand again in 1980.

On the other side, Lyndon B Johnson took over from John F Kennedy, after the latter's assassination, in November 1963; the next presidential election, which Johnson won, took place in 1964, so his initial period as president did not count as a first term under the 22nd Amendment. Therefore, Johnson was eligible to run for re-election in 1968.

Therefore, to the original question, if Kamala Harris took over now, or if she had done so a few weeks ago, she would not be serving a first full term for the purposes of US constitutional law, and if she won the coming election, she would be eligible to run again four years down the line.

[Octavious]

Cheers, Jamie. Great answer

[brainbomb]

Kamala seems to be polling at a slight advantage in key battleground states of PA, GA, NV, WI, MI which by my math is enough to win if those numbers carry on through the next two months.

That said Ohio and Florida continue to slide further out of even being swing states and much more decisive republican holdings now. Hell Ohio was a 10 point lead for Trump and I cant imagine thats just because of JD Vance.

[brainbomb]

These numbers may not mean much with debates still to go and much more campaigning to slog through. I would say it seems more promising for Trump than it does for Kamala since if you expect Trump to be so disliked and the only factor helping him was how old Biden was than surely a fresh candidate would have shown a much more sizable margin on some of these states (PA especially).

[kingofthepirates]

Kamala seems to be polling at a slight advantage in key battleground states of PA, GA, NV, WI, MI which by my math is enough to win if those numbers carry on through the next two months.

from what I heard from a friend a few days ago, kamala was leading in the rustbelt states, which would be enough for her to win (not sure abt the size of the lead and ofc people can lie about thier voting intentions but still)

[brainbomb]

Polling this far out with 1% leads is not really anything to even think much about. At this time this far out biden led in all the states he won by about 4 points or more. I think Hilary had about 5-6 point leads at this stage in many states she ended up losing also. In the case of Hilary a cloud hung over her candidacy with concerns an investigation would happen which ultimately never did. That probably derailed her momentum worse then her debates.

Trump isnt going to have something positive happen and could even be sentenced pre election which could mean a brief prison stint. All of that could impact kamalas numbers to skew late

[Trigfea63]

Except for Wisconsin, where Harris seems to have pulled ahead, these polls are basically a statistical dead heat and we don't know who would win if the election were held today. A 1-2 percentage point advantage in a poll is less than the poll's statistical margin of error.

Harris's 270-electoral vote strategy involves winning not only the key swing states of MI, WI, and PA, but also the "Omaha dot." While almost all U.S. states give all their electoral votes to the statewide winner, Nebraska divides its electoral votes among its districts. The rest of the state is solidly red, but Omaha is a "swing district." (Trump is currently polling +2.) Turns out, if Harris wins MI, WI, and PA, and Trump wins NV, GA, and NC, the 500,000 or so good people of Omaha will decide the election. Blue dot signs have now sprung up all over Omaha ... stranger than fiction ...

[brainbomb]

I can confirm after driving downtown today that every yard in the city has a sign with a blue dot on it. Omaha is basically massively going for Kamala at this point.

[Jamiet99uk]

Not a good 24 hours for Trumpstain.

He looked very rattled during the debate and pretty clearly came out the loser.

Now Taylor Swift has endorsed Kamala Harris.

[Octavious]

Taylor Swift favouring Harris is about as shocking as Mick Lynch saying he preferred Labour. It will make zero difference.

Her performance will give Kamala the confidence to engage in future debates, which may well benefit Trump depending on what's dominating the news at the time they happen. As much as Trump was on the losing side of this engagement it wasn't a Biden level disaster by any stretch of the imagination. Still, if I was a betting man I'd say the odds are currently 60-40 in favour of Harris.

[Trigfea63]

My impressions of the debate, having had a couple of days to digest it: Harris did pretty well. She was well prepared. She was calm and composed. She held her own against a pretty tough opponent. She even managed to rattle him a couple of times. She mostly looked like a credible candidate who could do the job of President. It could have gone a lot worse.

But she also could have spent more time letting Americans know who she is and what she stands for. That's probably a part of what undecided voters needed to hear, and they didn't hear much of it. If it's her strategy to simply run as not-Trump, that doesn't seem like a great strategy.

P.S. - Harris did come across as the more attractive candidate, but not by a huge margin. She definitely looked good, but Trump is tall. And his hair and makeup team did a nice job.

[Jamiet99uk]

You're voting for presidents based on height now?

[Trigfea63]

Haha, not me, but yes, enough Americans base their votes on things like height, physical attractiveness, etc., that it often decides the outcome of elections.