From the San Francisco Chronicle…
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How Biden’s re-election launch affects these three key Californians”“Joe Biden’s re-election announcement Tuesday marks the start of the last campaign for the 80-year-old Democrat.
“The question we’re facing is whether — in the years ahead — we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer. I know what I want the answer to be,” Biden said in a video launching his re-election bid.
Biden’s decision to seek a second term simultaneously reshapes the fates of three 50-something Californians — Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — whose futures are intertwined with the president officially declaring his intentions for 2024.
Then again, said Sacramento State political science Professor Kim Nalder, it’s not like Biden had much of a choice other than to announce now.
“He had to run to announce he was running now or he’d be a lame duck,” Nalder said. Even though there is little chance of much substantive legislation getting passed in gridlocked Washington, Biden “would have even less ability to try to get concessions out of Republicans” if he didn’t launch.
Besides, Biden’s potential Republican adversaries have already cranked up their campaigns. An independent committee supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who hasn’t declared his candidacy yet, has already spent $6.2 million on radio and TV ads so far. An independent group backing former President Donald Trump has spent $4.1 million, according to the ad-trackers at Medium Buying.
Unlike the last time Biden ran, he will have a day job to tend to during this campaign. That means Harris will have a higher profile on the campaign trail and so may Newsom, who is carving out a self-styled role as a Democratic tough guy standing up to red state governors, including DeSantis.
Biden is going to need all the help he can get from his younger allies because 70% of all Americans — including 51% of Democrats — don’t think he should run for re-election, according to a new NBC News poll. Nearly half of the respondents (49%) said Biden’s age was a reason they thought he shouldn’t run.
More potential doom for Biden: Only 38% of voters have a positive impression of him, while 48% see him in a negative light.
The good news for Biden is that voters loathe Trump even more. Only 34% of voters see Trump, the GOP front-runner, in a positive light, compared with 53% who viewed him negatively.
The starkest stat of all: Only 5% of voters want to see a Biden-Trump rematch.
Meanwhile, the three Californians will be major co-stars in the 2024 race, each with an eye on their own futures.
More time to understudyAfter a bumpy start to her term as the first female, first Black person and first person of Asian American heritage to hold the office, Harris has found her voice in recent months. Harris, 58, has become the Biden administration’s lead voice on reproductive rights — a development that started during an appearance in San Francisco last August.
She also won praise for traveling to Tennessee this month to speak in support of Black lawmakers who were ousted from the state legislature for joining a protest on gun control.
But her approval rating is nearly as miserable as Biden’s. Only 40% of Americans approve of her, while 51% disapprove, according to FiveThirtyEight.com, an independent analysis site.
She struggled to make visible progress in the portfolio of difficult issues she was assigned, particularly on voting rights and the root causes of illegal immigration.
Harris, however, will face a couple of challenges in burnishing her credentials for her potential run in 2028. As the No. 2 on the ticket, she will largely be a spokesperson for the Biden administration’s views. And those positions will follow her should she decide to run again for president.
“She is tied to the hip to the captain. She will sink or swim with the Biden administration,” said Luis Alvarado, a former California Republican consultant who recently left the GOP and is now registered as No Party Preference voter.
Alvarado recalled that Harris struggled in her 2020 race, branding herself as a “progressive prosecutor” who had trouble winning over progressives. “The world saw her pretending to be a progressive,” he said.
Biden likely will, as he did in 2020, carve out a more centrist path that could appeal to some moderate Republicans repelled by Trump. The downside for Harris is that would tie her to more moderate positions should she be challenged by progressive candidates in 2028, said Michael Ceraso, a Democratic strategist who worked on the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg.
For Harris, “it’s going to be a hard path to follow,” Ceraso said.
And should Biden win re-election, Ceraso said Harris will almost immediately face a question that won’t go away until she answers it: “When is she going to announce her run (for president)?”
Whether Vice President Harris would be on Biden’s ticket for re-election has been an open question in Washington in recent months. His campaign video, which features her almost as much as him, appears to answer that question in the affirmative.
Newsom as super surrogate — unless …Newsom, 55, has told The Chronicle he has “sub zero interest” in running for president and has widely and profusely praised Biden’s first term. At the same time, he has raised his national profile since easily winning re-election to a final term as governor last fall.
His timing could be ideal. His term as governor ends in November 2026 — just in time to start a 2028 presidential campaign a few months later.
Last month, Newsom created a federal political action committee called Campaign for Democracy, seeded with $10 million left over from his last gubernatorial campaign. He’s going to spend the next two years trolling red state governors — including DeSantis — for their records on LGBTQ, abortion and voting rights.
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Building a brand as a fighter is something that is appealing to younger voters,” Nalder said, “and something that so many Democrats are hungry for. It makes sense for him to build that brand. And being a loyal soldier, a good team player, is important, too, particularly in the long run.”
Like, say, in 2028.
Plus, Newsom will use his campaign funds in support of candidates in key races around the country — and on underdog Democratic candidates in red states that will be overlooked by national donors. Those candidates will be key to supporting Newsom should he run for president in 2028.
That job as a super surrogate will keep Newsom in the national conversation, just in case Biden can’t complete his campaign and Harris falters. “He’s standing by torpedo bay No. 2,” Alvarado said. “If there’s any malfunction or a series of malfunctions on torpedo bay No. 1, he’s ready to go.”
Ceraso, however, is dubious of Newsom or Harris as a national candidate should Biden falter.
“I don’t believe a California Democratic candidate will win a Southern presidential primary that counts in the next decade — regardless of who they are and the experience they have,” Ceraso said. “Newsom is quite reactionary to the news cycle — and I don’t think Southern voters gravitate toward that style of politicking. They see through that.”
McCarthy solidifies top perchUntil Republicans choose a presidential nominee, McCarthy, 58, will be the face of the national GOP — the person going toe to toe with Biden on high-stakes negotiations over issues like raising the federal debt ceiling.
But for how long? McCarthy has a tenuous grip at best on power, one that could crater if even a handful of GOP House members turn on him during the debt staredown. And McCarthy’s hardball debt ceiling negotiations could lead to a government shutdown that could hurt the GOP nominee. That’s what happened when then GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich and House Republicans got blamed for a government shutdown — something that helped Bill Clinton win re-election in 1996.
“His whole struggle to become speaker makes me wonder about his political acumen,” Nalder said.
To acquire and maintain power, McCarthy has aligned himself with the most conservative and controversial Republican members. McCarthy has referred to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia as a “close adviser.” The same Greene who wants to defund the FBI, halt immigration for four years and ban abortion nationally. In February, Greene called for “a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government.”
While Greene echoes Confederate President Jefferson Davis, McCarthy will have other problems during the primary, like keeping the GOP together while he remains neutral in a battle between Trump and DeSantis or whoever emerges from the primary scrum.
His main job, Alvarado said, is to continue to be one of the party’s best fundraisers.
“For all Republican candidates across the nation,” Alvarado said, “that’s his job right now: He’s the chief plumber. He has to make sure that the operation is working.”
Because there are still more than 18 months until Election Day. “