On "Forbes Newsroom," Kelly Dittmar, director of research for Rutgers' Center for American Women and Politics, sat down with ForbesWomen editor Maggie McGrath to talk about Vice President Kamala Harris and what voters need to know about her.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Now, you reference the historic nature of what could be her nomination.
00:05Of course, she is not officially the nominee for the party yet.
00:09That is still to be determined, though, as we'll talk about, a lot of people have thrown
00:13their endorsement behind her.
00:15But since we're taking a step back, what do you think regular voters should know about
00:20Kamala Harris that they might not be aware of if they haven't really been paying attention
00:24to her up until now?
00:27Yeah, I mean, I think she has a history of trailblazing.
00:31So we go from her, you know, being elected statewide in California as an attorney general.
00:38She went on to be elected to the U.S. Senate, the first black woman to be elected from the
00:43U.S. Senate, to the U.S. Senate, excuse me, from California.
00:47And only the second black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.
00:50I mean, this is a place where we really have had dismal representation, both in statewide
00:56executive offices for black women, as well as in the U.S. Senate.
01:00And so in both of those places, she's navigated being either a first and an only or first
01:06or an only.
01:08And so she knows what this path looks like.
01:10And of course, she obviously then went on to become the first woman vice president.
01:17And so this is something she's accustomed to.
01:20So in this case, being the second woman to be a nominee, the first black woman to potentially
01:25be a major party presidential nominee, this will not be new to her.
01:28And then I would just add in terms of her trajectory, you know, obviously she was very
01:32successful in the Senate, I think got a lot more national attention because of the way
01:37she brought her prosecutorial skills to many of those Senate committee hearings.
01:42We know prominently, you know, in the confirmation hearings for Justice Kavanaugh, her really
01:48putting him on the spot in a way that he was obviously uncomfortable, but really got
01:52to some answers around reprojective rights.
01:55But there are many examples like that.
01:57And I think we'll see them rotated again as she campaigns.
02:03And then as vice president, just to acknowledge, obviously she ran for president herself, was
02:08unsuccessful, had to drop out of that campaign relatively early.
02:11She didn't compete in primaries, talked about the financial challenge, which I think is
02:16tied to electability bias, which we could talk more about, you know, folks thinking
02:21it wasn't possible that she could beat Donald Trump.
02:24I think that has shifted immensely over four years.
02:29And I want to credit the fact that she's been second in command for that time period.
02:33And I think that helps her to make the case that she is absolutely electable in 2024.
02:39Let's talk about her record as vice president.
02:42She's been prominent on the issue of reproductive health.
02:46I think she's kind of been the singular figure from the administration, kind of going out
02:51around the country talking about the importance of reproductive health laws.
02:55But what's your take in terms of her policy achievements and what she has achieved as
02:59second in command?
03:00Yeah, I mean, it's interesting.
03:03She's been held to a very different standard than previous vice presidents, I think going
03:08in because she was this trailblazing figure.
03:11Folks really wanted to see more of her and hear more about the specific policy achievements
03:15she made.
03:16But as most vice presidents do, she has been a soldier for the administration, right, like
03:24in a good way.
03:25You know, she's fighting for key administration policy proposals.
03:30She's been on the forefront on some of the toughest ones, voting rights, immigration,
03:35abortion rights.
03:36Right.
03:37And so the administration has put a lot of trust in her to be both publicly speaking
03:42on these issues, as well as internally, obviously, influencing messaging and direction of the
03:49administration on them.
03:52So I think we can speak to the fact that she's been influential.
03:57She's also been a good voice on a lot of these major issues that people care about.
04:02And so she'll be able to shift that into her presidential campaign, saying like, look,
04:06I've been in the room and I've been out on the in the country to both learn about and
04:12speak on these issues and advocate for them.
04:16In terms of the different standards, the only other thing I want to raise there is so folks
04:21talk about, oh, well, she's she's low favorability.
04:25First of all, her favorability is not that different than than other vice presidents.
04:29It's also not very different than Joe Biden, right, folks.
04:32The favorability people give often is to the administration.
04:35And that's no surprise.
04:38Also important is that for the last four years, the Trump campaign and then the Republican
04:47Party have targeted Kamala Harris as the face of the administration.
04:53And they have done so purposefully, right, because her race and her gender make her more
04:58prone to attacks that she is radical or extreme or dangerous.
05:02Those are all racialized tropes.
05:05And so they put her as the face and said she's really in charge.
05:08The interesting thing about her becoming potentially the nominee is that then it actually doesn't
05:13change the strategy much.
05:15And she's already been encountering these attacks.
05:18And so her campaign should be ready for them.
05:21And I think already has been, you know, obviously pushing back by pointing to all the things
05:26that she's done.