The founder of this magazine, Robert M. La Follette, referred to his 1924 campaign for the presidency as a moral crusade to save a young United States from the ravages of monopoly and the threats by authoritarians to the future of American democracy. “That tyrannical power which the American people denied to a king, they will no longer endure from the monopoly system,” argued La Follette’s Progressive Party platform. “The people know they cannot yield to any group the control of the economic life of the nation and preserve their political liberties. They know monopoly has its representatives in the halls of Congress, on the Federal bench, and in the executive departments.”
La Follette did pretty well as a crusader, winning his own state of Wisconsin, finishing second in eleven western states, and securing 16.6 percent of the national vote. The Senator’s campaign also laid the groundwork for the politics and policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Now, a century later, Democrats sense that they are in the midst of another great struggle for representative democracy. Republicans have nominated as their 2024 presidential candidate a wily billionaire who pledged to serve as a dictator for a day. But anyone who knows the patterns of dictators recognizes that they seldom settle for one day of absolute power. And, with the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court extending the immunity power of Presidents in newly monarchical directions, the threat posed by Trump and the MAGA movement has been front and center in the minds of his foes.
Yet, while an assassination attempt that shocked the nation and a reasonably successful Republican National Convention have drawn attention and support to Trump, Democrats have been in turmoil.
President Joe Biden’s dismal performance in the first presidential debate on June 27 created a crisis for the President and his party. A sense that Biden was not up to the job took hold among party elites, as Democratic big donors and their echo chamber in big media began to push for a replacement. “Democrats in Disarray” was the headline of the early summer, as a recalcitrant Commander-in-Chief refused to stand down.
Biden appeared to think that, even in a diminished condition, he was up for another campaign—his twenty-fifth, counting primaries and general elections over the course of a fifty-four-year career as a county council member, U.S. Senator, Vice President, and presidential contender. Party leaders—steered, apparently, by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—disagreed.
Pelosi and her circle prevailed.
Biden stepped down on July 21, making an announcement that “puts his country over his own ambition,” said U.S. Representative Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin in a press statement.
But when one candidate steps down, another must step up. After Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday, she quickly began to accumulate support from top Democrats, unions, and abortions rights activists whose engagement is vital to Democratic campaigns. The outpouring of endorsements made it extremely unlikely that Harris would face serious challenges for the Party nomination when it gathers in Chicago in August.
But can she beat Trump?
The answer would appear to be “yes.”
Polls from before the President’s announcement showed Harris polling better than Biden at the national level and in a number of battleground states.
An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released July 11, conducted after Biden’s weak debate performance, found that 47 percent of all potential voters said they favored Trump over Biden.
So what happened when voters in the same poll were given the option to back Harris as the Democratic nominee? The Vice President moved the Democratic support level up to 49 percent among registered voters, who gave Harris 49 percent to 47 percent for Trump.
Among women, Biden and Trump were essentially tied, with the Democrat at 47 percent and the Republican at 46 percent. But women backed Harris over Trump by a 52 to 44 margin.
This could have something to do with the fact that Harris has, since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, emerged as the most outspoken and effective Democratic advocate for abortion rights. And, if elected, she would be the first woman to serve as President of the United States.
The ABC Poll was not an outlier. A CBS News poll, released after the assassination attempt and the Republican National Convention but before Biden quit, had Trump beating Biden by five points, while Harris narrowed the gap to three points. A CNN survey conducted earlier in the month had Trump ahead of Biden by a 49 to 43 margin, while Harris would decrease that difference to 47 to 45.
Where did the shifts toward Harris take place? Women, who backed Trump 47 to 44 over Biden, supported Harris 50 to 43.
People of color favored Biden 54 to 33, but backed Harris 58 to 29. Harris also ran better than Biden among Democrats and independents, and among liberals, moderates, and conservatives.
Polls are just snapshots, and this campaign is changing with each passing minute. There will be good polls and bad ones between now and November. But the suggestion that Harris is not up for the race doesn’t cut it. She’s viable. And, since Biden stood aside, she’s garnered the sort of support that suggests she can mount a crusade against Trump and Trumpism.
To get it right, Harris needs to amplify the economic and social and racial justice messages that have been central to progressive politics since the days when La Follette promised, “The will of the people shall be the law of the land,” and since the year when FDR started winning on that message. And, of course, she must amplify the democracy issues that Trump’s dictator talk has made so central to the politics of 2024.