Kamala’s Biden Balancing Act

President Joe Biden suffers from abysmally low approval ratings, and was so vulnerable to Donald Trump this fall that fellow Democrats mounted their own campaign to hound him from the race. His apparent replacement as the Democratic nominee is like an A.I.-generated image of a more salable alternative: younger, female, Black and Asian, and able to litigate the campaign against the 34-times-convicted Trump like the prosecutor she is.

On paper, it makes little sense for Vice President Kamala Harris to tie herself too closely to the man she hopes to replace. In the practical reality of politics, however, Harris would be wise to use Biden—as long as she does it in carefully targeted ways. As the second sitting vice president to seek the top job this century, Harris need only look back to her last predecessor faced with a similar choice. And in that excruciatingly close 2000 election, Vice President Al Gore made a risky—and arguably losing—decision to keep the troubled President Bill Clinton at arm’s length.

Clinton still enjoyed approval ratings in the low 60s in his last year in office but had accumulated baggage. He’d put the country through a painful time during the 1998 Monica Lewinsky sex scandal and his subsequent impeachment for perjury (this was back when a consensual sexual relationship was enough to cause a scandal—and before being found liable for sexual abuse was insufficient to deny a candidate the presidential nomination). Republicans were eager to cast Gore as a Clinton rehash, and the vice president, who was personally disgusted at Clinton’s behavior, wanted to make a break.

“I stand here tonight as my own man,” Gore said at the 2000 Democratic National Convention, a clear statement that he wasn’t going to run as Clinton’s second-in-command. He ran as he stood that night: without Clinton next to him, even eschewing (until very late in the race) having Clinton campaign on his behalf.

We’ll never know for sure if Clinton could have put Gore over the top that year. Gallup polling at the time indicated Clinton overall could be a drag on Gore’s campaign, with 17 percent of voters saying they’d be more likely to vote for Gore if Clinton were actively involved in the campaign and four out of 10 (mostly Republicans and independents) saying they would be less likely to vote for the Democratic nominee under those circumstances.

But campaigns are not won by national votes (a fact that became gut-wrenchingly clear to Gore, who won the popular vote but lost after a highly disputed recount in Florida and subsequent Supreme Court ruling that made George W. Bush president). They are won by often very small shifts in specific states and voter demographic groups. Had Clinton—one of the most talented campaigners and rousing political speech-givers in the modern political era—campaigned hard in then–swing state Missouri, could he have flipped it to Gore? Even Arkansas, Clinton’s home state, might have been in contention if Clinton had campaigned heavily there for his vice president.

Not using Clinton in the 2000 campaign was a “grave error,” Matt Bennett, co-founder and executive vice president for public affairs of the centrist group Third Way, told me. “Gore massively overestimated how people felt about Lewinsky.”

The dynamics are not exactly the same with Biden and Harris. He’s not—to put it kindly—the energetic campaigner and compelling speaker Clinton was. And while the former president’s troubles had to do with voter views of his character, the electorate was happy with his job performance. Voters, frustrated by the lingering effects of inflation (which itself is way down), grade Biden poorly despite record job creation, strong economic growth, and a long list of legislative accomplishments. He is often the wrong messenger for his own agenda. Republicans see a president who has passed progressive items such as gun safety and climate change legislation and issued executive orders forgiving student loan debt, and are aghast. But Democratic Party progressives see an old white man who hasn’t done enough on those priorities and who is the wrong voice to rally constituencies around perhaps the most galvanizing Democratic issue of this campaign: abortion rights.

But that doesn’t mean Biden can’t be useful, and it definitely does not mean Harris should separate herself from him. Harris, as early indicators have shown, can motivate young voters and Black men—voter groups where Biden was losing support in opinion polls. But Biden can be a reassuring presence and voice for other groups, especially those who might be reluctant to make a Black and Asian woman president.

Biden has a long and strong relationship with labor unions. He also outperformed 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton among white, non–college educated voters. Boosting support or turnout among those groups in battleground states could be crucial.

“We’re talking about a 90 percent overlapping coalition” between Biden and Harris, Matt Grossmann, director of Michigan State University’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, told me. But while Harris can rally Black voters, “Biden does better among old, white male voters. Obviously, it matters where you send Biden,” and it should be “to the oldest, whitest, and male-coded places,” Grossmann added.

On policy, Harris can hardly pretend she hasn’t been part of the administration. But she can make subtle distinctions. Her blunt criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the war in Gaza could help mend fences a bit with Democrats who are unhappy with Biden’s behavior on the issue. And after being the administration’s point person on reproductive rights (in speeches that were largely ignored by the media, since vice presidents’ speeches generally are largely ignored by the media), Harris can more effectively and forcefully use that issue to motivate female voters. That issue could be especially helpful in peeling off white women, who voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

And Biden’s backing has a different quality to it now that he’s dropped out of the race, according to veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, a senior adviser to the Gore–Joe Lieberman campaign in 2000 and now director of the University of Southern California’s Dornsife Center for the Political Future. The angst and anger that had been building as Democrats tried to convince Biden to step aside were replaced with a palpable relief—and deep affection—after Biden made his Oval Office speech withdrawing from the race. In less than a half-hour, Biden went from campaign albatross to beloved elder statesman among Democrats, making him a more effective advocate for Harris as she seeks the presidency.

“I actually don’t think the president’s unpopular [as an individual], and I suspect that his job ratings will go up after” his Oval Office speech, Shrum told me. “He’ll get a rousing reception at the Democratic convention. There’s not a barrier to her embracing him and saying, ‘Now we go to the future.’”

She should keep him close, then, as she gently pushes him into history.