President Joe Biden decided that if he were going to be forced out of the 2024 race, he wouldn’t allow his enemies to dictate the terms of the new ticket. There are numerous stories about how the party brass wanted a mini-primary, not a coronation, but Biden decided to nuke it. When he announced he was ending his re-election bid, he immediately endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. If you’re wondering why Barack Obama and other top Democrats took longer, this wasn’t the plan—no one wanted Kamala. Pelosi admitted she wanted a lightning-round primary. That’s the central reason, but there’s another one that’s predictable given the ethos of the Democratic Party: they were afraid to infuriate black women if someone other than Kamala won.
You simply cannot make this up, but deputy campaign manager for the Harris operation, Quentin Fulks, admitted that this was a central concern for not going down the primary route. He expounded further at the Harvard Institute of Politics, where he said that losing black women, Kamala’s strongest voting bloc, would have left whoever won, should it not have been the vice president without any base or party infrastructure. He then said that he’s not making a case against primaries in making these points:
Kamala Harris campaign manager explains the Democrat party could not have an open primary because it would have upset black women:
— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) December 7, 2024
Quentin Fulks: "To open up a Democrat primary, you would have had black women, be highly upset if it was not Kamala Harris.
I hear your concern and… pic.twitter.com/ye8ofmx3WM
It was important that we hijack the democratic process, because we thought some of our voters cared more about tribal affiliation than democracy, and we didn't want to be seen as beholden to democracy. https://t.co/h00Nl4Xx5B
— Peter Savodnik (@petersavodnik) December 7, 2024
There is some truth to this: Joe Biden’s war chest was only transferable to Ms. Harris. Then again, Democrats have tons of donors and other fat cats willing to write checks, so I’m not sure that reason passes the smell test. No infrastructure? The national party would have established something in a second. They have a well of operatives, staffers, volunteers, and other facets that make the Democratic Party a functioning national political force. It wouldn’t have been poverty. More difficult? Sure, but that was the Democrats’ choice when they all decided to let a dementia-ridden octogenarian who has numerous senior moments in front of the American public and foreign leaders run again, all while defending his mental capacity as top-notch. It wasn’t—and the June debate brutally exposed that aspect. That was the Left’s bet, and like a bad parlay, it blew up in their faces.
This was avoidable if top Democrats put the screws on Biden before we got into the thick of the campaign season. So, yes, there might be some kernels of truth here, but it’s all malarky. Also, it’s not as if black women were going to stay home this cycle. Black women and Jewish voters were the only voting blocs that saved Kamala Harris and the Democrats from a 1980-style beatdown. They’re also two groups likely never to abandon the Democratic Party.
The 2024 election is what happens when identitarian and ‘woke’ nonsense infest political strategy. Forget black women, guys—you didn’t have a candidate who could define herself or her agenda to the point where she said that she’d be just like Joe Biden in the Oval Office. She had multiple chances to reset and countless opportunities to define who Kamala Harris is, but she failed miserably. Even then, when the Democratic nominee proved to be laughably unqualified, unintelligent, and out of her depth, the black women that struck fear in the heart of the Harris operation never abandoned her. You’re telling me some other Democrat, who wasn’t Kamala and could string a sentence together, would lose these voters—please. I’m glad Democrats went down this road, and I’m happy that they’re still unaware of what went wrong and how to fix it, even if it stares at them in the mirror.
Still, the GOP should prepare for all possibilities in the upcoming elections because whether we like it or not, they’ve already begun.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member