Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on why Democrats quickly lined up behind Kamala Harris

amna: To discuss the future of the presidential race, I'm joined by our politics Monday team. That's Amy Walter of the cook political report with Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR, who is in rehoboth beach with the pool of reporters covering president Biden. Great to see you both. You saw Laura reported on the Daily Show support from democratic lawmakers lining up behind vice president Harris and a lot of the names you had been floated as potential challengers, governor Gavin Newsom, governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, transportation secretary Pete buttigieg, have all endorsed for now. Why do you think the party coalesced around her so quickly? Amy: I think they realized that it was getting late very quickly. And that there is only three weeks until the convention. We only have four months until election day. And that they had spent three weeks basically wringing their hands after the June 27 debate about what to do about Joe Biden , watching their call numbers releasing fairy deeply and down ballot candidates really starting to get incredibly nervous about the impact of the top of the ticket on their own races. I think what they saw was that they needed to lineup immediately behind a different candidate and put all their effort into making that work. Amna: She has hit the ground running. Vice president Harris visited the campaign headquarters earlier today, I trust the staff that is now her team and she delivered this message about how she plans to take a powerful message directly to former president trump. Take a listen. Vp. Harris: -- Creditors who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own game. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump's type. Amna: There is the taking on Donald Trump part of this and there is also the potentially shoring up parts of the voting blocks where president Biden had been weak. What is the Harris strategy there? Can she do that? Tamara: Already, young voters are more excited than they were before. She is a very meme-able candidate and her videos are all over tiktok and young people are excited. You are seeing, and I will be honest, I cannot fully explain it, but you are seeing coconut emojis all over the place because of something she said a year ago that has become a meme. She is bringing new life to this campaign for Democrats as we have talked about many times before and even before that very bad debate that president Biden had. Democats had an unease with him. They were worried he was too old. Democrats told pollsters and said it in focus groups that they hoped the party would have another candidate. I don't think many people imagined that it would happen exactly this way but this is what has happened. President Biden had said he is a big believer in fate. Fate intervened with that debate and then the three weeks are just growing concern and anxiety among Democrats and you saw it with the fundraising. $81 million in the first 24 hours, that is record-breaking fundraising coming from small dollar donors. These are people, 60% of them were new according to the campaign. These are people who had been holding back, who were not excited, and there was some sort of a pent-up demand among Democrats to show that excitement. She's also certainly reaching out to African-American voters. The divine nine black sororities and fraternities and there is a well of energy that exists for Harris and who she is in a history she could make. Republicans also want to tap into that and paint her as extreme. Amna: From what we know about why voters have been backing away from the biden/harris campaign in the last several months, the donor support is one thing. Party officials and lawmakers lining up behind her is another. Does all of that translate to the polls? Do we know? Amy: That is the question. So just to get a little bit wonky for one second, but I think we have to be careful not to look at polls taken before Sunday as indicative of where Kamala Harris is in terms of her matchup with Donald Trump or even how people feel about her. They may have answered polls in which they said when asked, what do you think about Kamala Harris being the president or running? But they are hypothetical in the same way that I can ask you about something theoretical about like a meal you are going to have but until you Ashley have it, you cannot really tell me what the experience was so I think it's going to be an interesting few weeks as people start to digest this. And you are right, I think at minimum what it does is it does energize both the donor base and voter base that has been sort of depressed, for lack of a better term, so what this does is it helps to raise her floor. In other words, if she gets the base back, that is really good news if you are the Harris campaign. The challenge is going to be getting those swing voters onto her side, and that, we don't know yet how they are going to react either to her, the way she came into this position, and the fact, remember, she does bring some energy to the democratic base, but she carries all the same baggage because as we will hear from Republicans, she was, you know, principally sourced to work on the border. She is in the white house when a whole bunch of other stuff past including the inflation reduction act and others that they are no doubt going to remind voters that she cannot separate herself from the actions of the administration as a whole. Amna: We have already seen Republicans working very hard to link her to president Biden, to what they call his failed policies and if you look at the Republican play, naming J.D. Vance to the ticket was really a doubling down on the base, and it is a straight play for the blue wall, the four states he kept mentioning over and over of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. In the world of potential running mates for a possible president Harris nomination, not many here, where do you Democrats have the most potential advantage? Who could help her out most of meted against this Republican ticket? >> There are some swings. The governor of Pennsylvania, for instance, or the governor of North Carolina, Roy cooper, who is someone who is actually quite popular in a swing state, if you are being generous. He is a Democrat who has won twice with trump on the ballot. That is a state that has been a reach for Democrats and is something they could be looking for but I also want to just be realistic about how important the vice presidential pick is. We all love to talk about it. It's extremely fun and great to play those games and think about scenarios but in the end, the president, the nominee is running for president. The vice presidential nominee can only do so much. They can do harm but they can only help so much. Amna: Amy, do you agree with that? Amy: Absolutely. It helps around the margins but in an era where everything is decided by the margins, I think that is important. There is also the question about sending a message not just about the candidate, who they are and where they are from, but what their age is, what their background is. It would be a generational shift to pick somebody like Josh Shapiro who is in his late 40's and having Kamala Harris, it would also, you know, sort of make a gen X argument for the Democrats versus a baby boom presidential candidate on the Republican side. Amna: I realize there's still questions ahead. Democrats have to work out the rules for the infrastructure moving forward but you noted as we began this conversation that it was three weeks ago, that debate unfolded that led to this whirlwind of activity. We have seen in the last few weeks, and we have basically that exact same time to go before the democratic convention begins. Is the chaos portion of this election cycle over or is there greater uncertainty ahead? >> Are never going to say anything is over. We do have to, as tam pointed out, and Laura, the campaign infrastructure is self seems to be settling into place. Basically, they are can bit -- conveying the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign and that will take a little bit of time. I'm sure there will be some bumps along the way there. Harris has to go out and perform as a candidate. She has not had to do that as a candidate since she was -- well, not even on the trail. In 2020, when they were campaigning remotely and before that in her failed. For the nomination. This is a very different experience that she is going to have to get up to speed on. Amna: Different experience for all of us to cover as well. Go ahead. Tamara: I think it is going to be a race to define Harris between Republicans and the trump campaign and Harris and her campaign. Amna: Alright. That is our politics Monday team. Always great to see you both. Thank you. >> You are welcome. ♪♪