By Robert J. Hansen | OBSERVER Staff Writer
The day after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race, some of California’s leading Black Democrats said Kamala Harris represents an opportunity to showcase a multicultural American dream story and a younger, battle-tested challenger.
Willie Brown – former mayor of San Francisco, longtime California assemblymember and influential legislator – thinks that if Harris were to secure the Democratic nomination, it would signal to Black voters that the “American dream is available to all people.”
Harris is backed by enough delegates to become the Democratic nominee for president, according to The Associated Press.
Brown, 90, discounted concerns that Harris isn’t qualified to be president. Harris was elected San Francisco district attorney, California attorney general, U.S. senator and vice president.
“She is probably one of the most prepared persons ever for that job,” Brown told The OBSERVER. “Nobody else has had that kind of a string of success.”
Brown suggested Harris pick Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as a running mate. Such a ticket, Brown said, recalls the Clinton-Gore ticket, which won twice.
At a press conference Sunday, Brown told reporters Harris is well positioned to defeat former President Donald Trump in November. “I hope all those people that on the Democratic side for the last [month] have allowed a poor performance out of a debate to distract them … will now no longer be distracted.”
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles), who is half Black and half South Asian like Harris, told The OBSERVER that people of color “have a true fighter” in Harris, who is from Oakland. She said the vice president’s campaign is especially exciting for Californians, who have a native daughter running for president, as well as biracial folks. “I think there are so many of us across the country and California who see ourselves in her,” Kamlager-Dove said.
Kamlager-Dove, who was on a Zoom call with more than 44,000 Black women from across the nation Sunday night, thinks Harris has energized the Democratic party. She said that call raised nearly $2 million and garnered 30,000 new volunteers for Harris’ campaign.
The Harris team raised more than $81 million in the 24 hours immediately following Biden’s announcement, The Associated Press reported. More than 888,000 grassroots donors contributed in those 24 hours, her campaign said.
Sixty percent of those donors made their first contribution of the 2024 cycle and 43,000 people committed as new recurring donors, more than half of whom pledged weekly donations.
“There are Black voters in all of those numbers,” Kamlager-Dove said.
Political veteran Mel Assagai, who runs the lobbying firm California Policy Solutions, said Harris, a former prosecutor, can argue effectively why Donald Trump should not be president and that “in Kamala, you almost have the perfect foil for a criminal defendant Republican nominee like Donald Trump.”
Assagai said a Harris candidacy has reinvigorated Black Democrats, including some who may have become disillusioned with Biden because of his age and his modest embrace of abortion rights. “Remember,” he said, “we only won Georgia by 11,000 votes.”
He believes Harris increased African American voter participation from three to eight percentage points in 2020 and, as Georgia shows, “a few thousand votes makes a difference.”
The key to the election, according to Assagai, is not converting Black Trump voters to Harris, but to drawing in the Black voters who may have been considering sitting this election out.
Sacramento political expert Sam Walton said he was a “dyed in the wool” Biden supporter but as time went on he was “hanging on by the fingernails.” Walton also sees fresh enthusiasm among Black voters, including some who are willing to vote for Harris when they had stepped back from Biden. “There’s a perception that an African American will be more fair to the African American community than others have been,” he said. “Whether that’s true or not, that’s the perception.”
Brown and Walton question anecdotal reports that more Black people intend to vote for Trump in this election than in 2020. A New York Times/Siena College poll in March showed support for former President Trump among Black voters rose 19 points, from 4% to 23%, in the last four years.
“I think that was more illusion than reality because Trump’s people are major liars. They make stuff up,” Walton said.
Other Black leaders said the vice president’s race and lived experience could come into play with Black voters. Phyllis Marshall, a classmate of Harris at UC Law San Francisco, said the vice president is the right person for the right time to be the next president.
Marshall said Harris grew up similar to many African Americans and that she identifies in a way that is different from former President Barack Obama. “I think Black Americans appreciate the way she has continued to reflect the value that she finds in not only African Americans, but the diversity of America,” she said.
Marshall, who also was on the call of 44,000 Black women, said one issue many were concerned with is that young people were not energized about the election. She believes Harris could inspire somewhat apathetic younger voters.
Marshall has known Harris for more than 30 years and recalled her as “a leader on campus pushing agendas that would serve the students whether they were African American, women or LGBTQ, she had a fire in her belly even as a young law student.”
Harris has been endorsed by U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler, and California representatives Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Ami Bera and Doris Matsui.