DALLAS — There is no question that the first week of Kamala Harris’ transition from Vice President to likely Democratic nominee for President has been successful by just about any measure.
But is the excitement for her or the fact President Biden finally dropped out of the race?
Longtime Democratic consultant Jane Hamilton says it could be a mixture of both.
“But I will say this, when you give your money, typically you’re excited about the person you’re giving your money to,” Hamilton said on Inside Texas Politics. “When you look at $81 Million in the first 24 hours, that is unprecedented in a Presidential race. And when we see that 62% were new donors, what that’s telling us is that these are people, and messaging, and excitement coming from the outside.”
In addition to historical fundraising, Hamilton says Harris also sees historical support in terms of delegates lining up behind her.
But Republicans know this too. And after a slow start, they’re already sharpening and increasing their attacks on Harris.
Hamilton says Harris will be ready when the initial honeymoon period ends.
“Well, I think that she’s showing, in real-time, that she is ready. The question had been: does she have the organization? What are they going to do about messaging? So far, Kamala Harris has been spot on,” the Democrat said.
And Jane Hamilton would know.
Among her many accomplishments, she led Clay Jenkins’ winning campaign for Dallas County Judge in 2010 and Marc Veasey’s successful campaign for Congress two years later.
She was President Biden’s Texas campaign chair during the 2020 Presidential primary.
Hamilton also made the Democratic runoff in her own bid for Congress in 2022 but lost to Jasmine Crockett, who replaced longtime Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson.
One area of weakness Republicans will try to exploit against Harris is her record on the border, which has been one of the most high-profile jobs she’s had as Vice President.
But after record crossings and a humanitarian crisis along the southern border during the first few years of the Biden administration, the numbers have dramatically dropped in recent months.
June 2024, for instance, saw the lowest monthly total for illegal crossings since January 2021. U.S. border officials say there were slightly more than 83,500 illegal crossings last month. That’s a drop from 117,000 in May. Compare that to the record of 250,000 or so illegal crossings in December 2023.
The New York Times reports the daily average of southern border encounters was under 1,900 as of this week.
Hamilton agrees the border will be red meat for Republicans, but says Harris can use the drop in numbers to her advantage.
Hamilton referred to a bipartisan border bill that died earlier this year after opposition from former President Donald Trump and other House Republicans.
“She was able, in terms of policy, to get a bipartisan bill on both the House side and the Senate side. Donald Trump made sure that he made phone calls to kill that bill. He made phone calls and what he said in those conversations was that I do not want to give President Biden a win on this issue for his next election.”
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