Harris

This is the April 14, 2021, edition of the Essential Politics newsletter. Like what you’re reading? Sign up to get it in your inbox three times a week.

Former President Trump‘s banishment from Twitter has had a calming effect on the country that even some of his sharpest critics did not foresee.

Yet political discourse on social media has not fundamentally changed. It remains nasty and brutish at times.

Good morning and welcome to Essential Politics, Kamala Harris edition. This week, I’ll talk about my takeaways from reporting on the vice president’s biggest online cheerleaders, the KHive, a loose-knit network of supporters who say they are responding to the toxicity of social media by fighting back when it comes to Harris. Their critics say they are part of the problem.

KHive and the political questions it raises.

The story about the KHive, published online last week and in print on Sunday, told of the comradery, celebration and mutual sense of purpose its members find, mostly on Twitter, where they defend Harris against what they see as an unfair standard applied to political women of color. The Harris fans’ biggest fights, with fellow liberals, have gotten personal at times. Some members have had their accounts suspended by Twitter.

I hope you will read the story, because they are an interesting group of people. A few broader political points are worth considering as you do:

These kinds of online groups will be an important force in 2024 and beyond.

Ashley Bryant, a Democratic strategist who specializes in digital politics, told me she sees the early fights among the KHive, Bernie Bros (the nickname for Bernie Sanders’ progressive fans) and other groups as a precursor to the party’s next presidential nomination fight.

That could come in 2024 or 2028, depending on whether President Biden runs for reelection. Hard-core partisans are getting a head start.

Republicans have their social-media fights as well. But Trump’s still-dominant presence in the party, combined with his Twitter ban, has given the Republican version of this battle a different flavor.

Many in the NeverTrump faction seem to have given up on the Republican Party, while the post-Trump crowd of potential presidential aspirants and their followers is paralyzed by Trump’s hold on the party’s base. This week, for example, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley backtracked on her prior comments disavowing Trump, telling reporters she would support him if he chose to run in 2024.

But I thought Twitter isn’t real life!

This is an important point. The Biden team’s motto, both when he was a candidate and now that he’s president, is that Twitter is not real life. By that they mean that some of the strongest opinions shared by the partisans and pundits who dominate the platform do not often reflect the broad swath of voters who decide primaries and general elections.

That posture helped Team Biden avoid overreacting to criticism or praise shared on Twitter. And the contrast with Trump, who exhausted Americans with his constant provocative presence online and in the news, appears to be playing a big part in Biden’s relative popularity. Politico published a smart story on Biden’s lower-volume media strategy this week, summarizing his approach as “First, do no self-harm.”

One important caveat: Online debates may not be the driving force in public opinion, but they can stoke debate in Congress. For example, the fight over whether to abolish the filibuster in the Senate — which requires many bills to garner a supermajority of 60 votes to pass — has been much hotter online than it is with the general public, though a change in that relatively obscure practice could have significant policy implications for the country.

Notwithstanding Biden’s relatively low-key online persona, Harris has courted the in-your-face KHive. And it’s easy to see why. Its members provide a sense of passionate support, something she lacked in her 2020 presidential primary run. Some members I spoke with spend 20 hours or more online each week. Others said they are active offline in volunteering for her and the Democratic Party.

But such occasionally confrontational groups also pose risks for her, if she becomes too reactive to online debates or gets dragged into some of the more personal and provocative squabbles among partisans.

Democrats are content right now but still divided.

There is also risk for the Democratic Party. Online, Sanders and Harris boosters accuse each other of all manner of attacks, including a practice known as doxxing, in which a target’s personal information is posted online.

Among many, anger lingers from the 2016 nomination contest between Hillary Clinton and Sanders — when Clinton supporters blamed the other side for costing her the election by resisting her candidacy, and Sanders supporters accused Clinton proxies of controlling the party apparatus to stymie Sanders. Some of the Clinton supporters are now behind Harris.

If Democrats want to hold on to the White House and Congress, they need to hash out policy debates but stay unified.

“I don’t have a crystal ball, I don’t know what 2024 could potentially look like,” Bryant said. “But you don’t want voters not even being willing to open their eyes to another candidate just because they’re aligned to one that may not get the nomination.”

The latest from the White House

— From David S. Cloud and Tracy Wilkinson: Biden is planning to withdraw all remaining troops from Afghanistan and will complete the pullout before Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that sparked the United States’ longest war, according to a senior U.S. official.

— Biden began to fill the top posts at the Homeland Security Department on Monday. Its ranks were hollowed out by his predecessor amid politicization and record vacancies. Almost all the appointees have California ties, reports Molly O’Toole.

— Lifting kids out of poverty could be Biden’s legacy. Yet the future of his policies remains uncertain as the administration’s ambitions run into spending limits, writes David Lauter.

— Biden spoke Tuesday morning with Russian President Vladimir Putin, warning him against aggressive moves toward Ukraine but also inviting him to a summit meeting, Lauter and Wilkinson write.

— Biden will address a joint session of Congress for the first time on April 28 after receiving an invitation from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

The view from Washington

— Congress has a very short window to reverse regulatory actions approved by President Trump’s administration before he left office. Sarah D. Wire writes that at least two are expected to get Senate votes in the coming weeks. Also from Wire: Can Biden really cancel student debt? Here’s where the debate stands.

— The Supreme Court is set to decide soon whether conservative Christians can refuse to work with same-sex couples in a city-funded foster care program. David G. Savage writes that it’s the latest clash at the high court between religious liberty and marriage equality.

— Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are negotiating a modest bill designed to help law enforcement combat the rise in hate crimes targeting Asian Americans, a rare moment of potential bipartisan compromise on legislation, Jennifer Haberkorn reports.

The view from California

— In 2020, demonstrators began ditching traditional protest venues to instead chant, fulminate and sit-in outside the front doors of officials’ homes. Sacramento has begun to push back, with officials saying “no more,” reports James Rainey.

— There have been hundreds of attempts to break up California. Those forces are driving the effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, writes columnist Mark Z. Barabak.

— And speaking of the recall effort: a colorful cast of hopefuls who want to replace the Democratic leader has started to emerge, including former porn star Mary Carey and Los Angeles billboard icon Angelyne. Both ran in the 2003 recall election to replace then-Gov. Gray Davis, writes Faith E. Pinho.

— A far-reaching proposal to outlaw hydraulic fracturing and ban oil and gas wells from operating near homes, schools and healthcare facilities failed in the California Legislature on Tuesday, writes Phil Willon.

— From John Myers: California law enforcement officers could lose their certification based on the decisions of a panel that includes victims of police misconduct under legislation that moved forward Tuesday in the Legislature. Lawmakers also supported an expansive ban on policing techniques that obstruct a person’s breathing.

When I read all the hype being heaped on Kamala Harris’ lead in early polls for the 2028 Democratic nomination, I have to chuckle to myself.

The release of a Rasmussen Reports poll in February was titled, “Kamala Harris Still Leads 2028 Field for Democrats.” One headline in the Hill predicted, “Kamala Harris may yet be the Democratic nominee in 2028.” A Washington Examiner piece about polling warned, “Democrats won’t get rid of Kamala Harris that easily for 2028.”

I chuckle not because I don’t believe the numbers, but because I don’t believe any poll this far out in an open contest is meaningful, let alone determinative. I’ve seen this movie before, and it didn’t end well.

In 2003, after managing the successful 2002 reelection campaign of California Gov. Gray Davis, I signed on as an advisor to the presidential campaign of Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman — who, I needn’t remind anyone, had been the Democratic nominee for vice president in the 2000 election, which he and Al Gore lost in a nail-biter to George W. Bush.

Based simply on his high name identification from that hellzapoppin’ race, and the fact his name had been on the ballot in all 50 states just two years before, Lieberman initially led the Democratic field quite handily in almost every national poll.

An ABC News/Washington Post survey in January 2003 found Lieberman leading the Democratic field with 27%. A Gallup poll from that same month also placed him first, ahead of both John Kerry and Richard Gephardt.

A Pew poll in the summer of 2003 also found Lieberman atop the field, as the best-known candidate at 85% name recognition, and 58% support, ahead of Kerry, Gephardt and Howard Dean.

Boy, did we brag about Lieberman’s lead at every stop and in every press release. But in the end, the promising early numbers meant nothing. When actual votes were cast, Lieberman totally flamed out, receiving a measly 8.9% of the vote in the critical first primary in New Hampshire, finishing dead last, and dropping out of the race in February 2004, having lost every primary and caucus up to that point.

Why? A lot of reasons, including mistakes made by the candidate and campaign. But fundamentally because, when Democrats started to take a close look at and assess the full field, they relegated Lieberman to the status of a loser, and they wanted to move on. We heard a lot of, “He had his chance and lost.” Does Harris come to mind?

The fact is, we Democrats tend to put defeated presidential nominees in the rear-view mirror pretty quickly. Think of Michael Dukakis, Gore and Kerry. And let’s not forget, Harris obtaining the nomination in 2024 was a fluke; she didn’t compete in one primary or receive one primary vote. The first time she ran for president, in the 2020 cycle, she also didn’t win one primary or receive a single primary vote, because she ran a bad campaign and hightailed it out of the race before a single vote was cast. Two strikes and you’re out?

We Democrats just don’t renominate losers. The last time we did it was exactly 70 — yes, 70 — years ago, with Adlai Stevenson in 1956 after he had lost the 1952 presidential race to Dwight Eisenhower. Stevenson rewarded Democrats for this recycling effort by losing to Eisenhower a second time — by an even worse margin. Democrats learned their lesson: Reheating doesn’t work with failed candidates.

And, come on, Harris not only lost to Trump, not only lost all seven swing states, but was the first Democratic presidential nominee in 20 years to lose the popular vote. And her weak showing also helped Republicans wrest control of the Senate from Democrats. We’re supposed to imagine that’s a credible record on which to run again for the nomination?

All of these breathless stories about Harris leading the field nationally also never mention her perilous standing in her own home state of California. A Berkeley IGS survey in August revealed that by a margin of 18 percentage points, even her fellow Democrats in California did not want her to run again. A Politico poll this month showed Gov. Gavin Newsom with a 2-to-1 lead in California among voters leaning toward voting in the 2028 Democratic primary.

So have fun, Kamala Harris, enjoying your name-ID high while it lasts (although maybe a mite longer than your 107-day presidential effort).

Garry South is a Democratic strategist who has managed four campaigns for governor of California and played significant roles in three presidential campaigns, including that of Al Gore.

SACRAMENTO — Californians have never been forced to choose between Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris, two homegrown political darlings, during any election.

But if the state’s registered Democrats picked now, Newsom would trounce Harris as their party’s next nominee for president and have the edge over other Democratic contenders, according to a poll released Friday by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.

Twenty-eight percent of the California Democrats who were surveyed selected the governor as their top choice in the 2028 presidential election. U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) followed with 14% and former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg received 11%. Harris came in fourth, with only 9% of voters in her own state naming her as their preferred Democratic nominee.

“It’s quite a positive result for Newsom,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS Poll. “He’s separated himself from the rest of the pack, and especially when you compare him to the other major Californian in the considerations, he’s three times as much as Kamala. That’s quite impressive.”

The political careers of the governor and former vice president have orbited each other but never crossed since Newsom was sworn in as San Francisco’s mayor and Harris as the city’s district attorney on the same day in 2004. Now the two Bay Area natives are both flirting with the 2028 presidential contest as they travel the country promoting their life stories on respective book tours.

It’s early days and neither politician has said they will or won’t launch official campaigns for the Oval Office. The possibility remains that Californians might finally see a matchup that the two Democrats have long avoided.

Newsom set his sights on the governor’s office in 2010 before dropping out and running for lieutenant governor, a largely powerless post in which he served in the shadow of Gov. Jerry Brown for eight years. Harris won election that year as California attorney general.

Harris’ and Newsom’s paths diverged again when she chose to run for U.S. Senate in a 2016 contest to replace former Sen. Barbara Boxer and he announced his candidacy for governor in the 2018 election.

When Harris jumped into the 2020 and 2024 races for the White House, Newsom said he wouldn’t run against her. He’s discredited the idea that the two politicians have some kind of a sibling rivalry and noted that their trajectories ran adjacent and never collided.

Newsom was asked again last month whether he would vie against Harris in a presidential contest. The governor said he hasn’t “gotten in the way of her ambition ever,” and he doesn’t imagine that he would in the future. His answer changed when he was pressed to respond specifically to the potential for 2028.

“That’s fate. I don’t, I don’t know,” Newsom said to CNN’s Dana Bash, throwing up his hands. “You know, you can only control what you can control.”

Newsom and Harris had greater support from Black and Latino voters than white and Asian American Democrats in the new poll. She performed well among Democrats younger than 30 compared with other age groups, while Newsom fared better with older Democrats. More women selected Newsom as their first or second choice than they did Harris.

Neither California heavyweight performed particularly great among Democratic voters in the Bay Area, which DiCamillo called a curious finding for two politicians from the region. Support was higher for Harris and Newsom in almost every other region of the state.

DiCamillo believes the presence of Ocasio-Cortez on the list probably pulled some support from Harris. California voters in other recent polls were also sour on a third presidential run by Harris.

An Institute of Governmental Studies poll in August gauged interest in the potential candidacy of Newsom and Harris. About 45% of the state’s registered voters said they were enthusiastic about Newsom running, compared with 36% for Harris. Almost two-third of voters in that survey, and half of Democrats, said Harris should not run for president again.

Although Newsom clearly beat the field of candidates in the most recent poll, DiCamillo said receiving support from a little more than a quarter of those surveyed in his own backyard isn’t exactly wonderful. The governor’s approval rating is also down.

The poll found that 48% of California registered voters say they approve of the job Newsom is doing, with the same share disapproving of his performance. That marks a drop from 51% approval the last time DiCamillo asked in August. Disapproval also climbed, by 5 percentage points.

Voters held positive opinions about Newsom’s participation in international conferences, which was described in the poll as the governor “offering an alternative to the policies being promoted by President Trump on issues like climate change and the economy.” The poll found 59% of statewide registered voters approve and 37% disapprove.

Cristina G. Mora, co-director of the poll, said the results suggest Newsom’s more aggressive stance with Trump seems to resonate in his own state.

“Though Californians may hold mixed views on his gubernatorial tenure, they overwhelmingly see him as the strongest counter to Trump and MAGA candidates,” Mora said. “Harris’s earlier presidential defeat, compounded by persistent voter biases against women and candidates of color, may also be shaping these early numbers.”

The Berkeley IGS/Times poll surveyed 5,019 California registered voters online in English and Spanish from March 9 to 14. The results are estimated to have a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points in either direction in the overall sample, and larger numbers for subgroups.

The Times has covered Kamala Harris’ political career since 1994, when then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown appointed her to the California Medical Assistance Commission.

Since then, we’ve written 2,229 articles on Harris, who is a California native, received her law degree here and became the first woman and Black American to serve as the state’s attorney general. She’d later become the first South Asian American elected to the U.S. Senate, and only the second Black woman ever to serve in the 100-member body. She has been the sole Black woman in the Senate during her four years there.

The Los Angeles Times is introducing “Covering Kamala Harris,” a beat dedicated to her historic rise to the White House. She is the first vice president who is Black, South Asian American and female.

This news enterprise beat will be anchored by White House reporter Noah Bierman, who joined The Times in 2015 after reporting on politics and other topics at newspapers including the Miami Herald and Boston Globe. He will also write a special edition of our Essential Politics newsletter focused on Harris every other Wednesday.

Throughout the year, we’ll continue to add resources to our coverage with the goal of being the most comprehensive and authoritative news source as we chronicle Harris’ first year.

Interested in following our coverage? You can find the “Covering Kamala Harris” section on our site and sign up for Essential Politics, of which Bierman will write a biweekly edition. And follow our new stand-alone Instagram account, @latimeskamalaharris, for more updates.

Kimbriell Kelly is the Washington bureau chief at the Los Angeles Times.