Economic, foreign policy vision: VP Kamala Harris must 'hone message for post-industrial states'
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00:00U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris looks set to clinch the Democratic Party nomination
00:07after her first full day on the campaign trail.
00:10She now has enough support from Democratic delegates to be officially named the nominee
00:15to replace Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race on Sunday.
00:18Karis Garland takes a look.
00:22In just one day, support for Kamala Harris snowballed.
00:26After endorsements from Democratic heavyweights, Harris now has the backing of enough delegates
00:31to clinch her party's presidential nomination.
00:35The U.S. Vice President celebrated the news on social media, saying,
00:39I'm proud to have earned the support needed to become our party's nominee, adding,
00:43I fully intend to unite our party and our nation and defeat Donald Trump.
00:51The news came after Harris addressed campaign workers in Delaware, the former prosecutor
00:56offering them a sense of how she plans to take on her Republican opponent.
01:01I took on perpetrators of all kinds, predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off
01:10consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain.
01:16So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump's type.
01:21There'd been speculation on whether anyone would challenge Harris for the presidential
01:25nomination, but on her first full day of campaigning, no one stepped forward, her major potential
01:31rivals instead rallying around her, including governors Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro and Gretchen
01:37Whitmer.
01:39And Harris isn't just earning endorsements, but also money.
01:43With large and small donations, her campaign raised a staggering $81 million in 24 hours,
01:49a record breaking sum, another sign of the reinvigoration of a Democratic presidential
01:55campaign that until now was in crisis.
01:59Meanwhile, Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance used his first solo campaign rallies
02:04Monday to slam Kamala Harris.
02:07Here's more of what he had to say.
02:08Now, history will remember Joe Biden as not just a quitter, which he is, but one of the
02:14worst presidents of the United States of America.
02:17But my friends, Kamala Harris is a million times worse and everybody knows it.
02:23She signed up for every single one of Joe Biden's failures and she lied about his mental
02:30capacity to serve as president.
02:32I think we ought to kick them all out come November and replace them with some people
02:36who care about this country.
02:38We're going to talk more about this now with Sean Safford, a professor at the prestigious
02:44Sciences Po University here in Paris, who joins me on set.
02:47Hi, Sean.
02:48Thanks for coming in.
02:49Thanks for having me.
02:50Kamala Harris broke a donation record, bringing in $81 million in a day, more than $100 million
02:56in about 30 hours.
02:57I mean, what does that say about that record and the excitement surrounding her campaign?
03:00I mean, it's unprecedented.
03:02There was clearly a lot of pent up demand, I think in part, you know, a lot of the funding
03:07had dried up for Joe Biden over the last month and people really wanted to get behind somebody.
03:14And it's clear that it's going to be Kamala Harris.
03:17That amount of money is really remarkable.
03:19Joe Biden goes into or Joe Biden went into, you know, this last month with about $92 million
03:26in his war chest.
03:27So they almost doubled it in 24 hours.
03:29Yeah.
03:30It's really incredible.
03:31I mean, it does seem like this is steaming right ahead.
03:33Is there anything that could stop her now at this point?
03:36Well, it's interesting to say that, you know, she hasn't said she had a little bit of a
03:41speech last night where she introduced herself really to the to the campaign, which of course
03:45knew her.
03:46But this was the first time she had said anything.
03:48She's she's given one speech.
03:50She has been on that trail for one day and she really hasn't said anything.
03:54Could Kamala Harris stumble in the next week or two?
03:57Of course she could.
03:58Right.
03:59She is under a huge amount of pressure.
04:00She will be observed with the same fine tooth comb that people have been observing Joe Biden
04:05with for the last month.
04:07There is that little period of time between now and the convention to make a change.
04:10I can't imagine that she's going to mess up her opportunity, but but certainly it's
04:16possible.
04:17And she has had a lot of really key Democratic endorsements.
04:19I mean, former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but not
04:23yet Barack Obama.
04:25What might be holding him back?
04:27A lot of people, I would say myself included, felt that Kamala Harris would benefit from
04:32some kind of a contest, some kind of a challenge, an obstacle, an obstacle to overcome, somebody
04:41to vanquish.
04:42Right.
04:43So I think she would have come out of the convention even stronger if she had been able
04:48to use this time between now and the end of the convention as a show of strength within
04:54the party.
04:55And I think Barack Obama was hoping to sort of orchestrate that.
04:59But as it became obvious over the last 24 hours, there was no incentive for anybody
05:03serious to get into the race.
05:06And as that sort of fell into place and as the mood of the party became apparent, it's
05:11it's turning into a coronation.
05:13Do you think that that could come back to haunt her down the line?
05:17You know, if she loses, we are all going to look back on all of these events, right?
05:22Joe Biden's decisions, the debate itself, and then everything moving forward about what's
05:28happening.
05:29And of course, I think that would be one thing that we'd look back on with recrimination.
05:33If she succeeds, then it will be seen as exactly the right thing to do.
05:36So one of the key next steps in all of this process is her going to pick someone for vice
05:40president.
05:41Talk us through who the big names in the running are there or what type of person would be
05:45ideal for her at this point.
05:47It seems that there are two.
05:49The options really are coming down to two different kinds of governor and Mark Kelly,
05:54who's a senator from Arizona.
05:56The two options are really to pick somebody from a, quote, unquote, purple state, right?
06:02A swing state.
06:03So that would be Michigan, Pennsylvania, you know, maybe Ohio, but but really Michigan
06:10or Pennsylvania at this point, or else a Democratic governor in an otherwise red state, somebody
06:16who's figured out how to speak to that middle group of voters who this election is going
06:21to come down to.
06:23And so Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania is a name that is put out there quite a bit.
06:28Pennsylvania is absolutely required if they're going to win.
06:32But he's also, you know, just a very strong candidate.
06:35He balances her out in some ways.
06:37She's not known as an excellent public speaker, and he absolutely is.
06:42Then you have people like the governor of Kentucky, Bashir and Cooper in North Carolina.
06:49These are states that are more or less Republican, but they have figured out how to win in those
06:55states.
06:56And so they want those kinds of people.
06:57And then you have Mark Kelly, who is a former astronaut, the husband of Gabby Giffords,
07:03who was a victim of, you know, political violence and seen as an American hero in Arizona, a
07:10state that they could also flip and that would be necessary to to win.
07:15So this Tuesday, she'll be in the battleground state of Wisconsin for her first campaign
07:18rally.
07:19Wisconsin, of course, is where the Republican National Convention was.
07:22What are her biggest challenges going into there and all the swing states?
07:25And I guess the real question is, is can she win them?
07:29She came out last night with her first, you know, her first statement.
07:34And you know, she had two major things to say.
07:36The first was, I am Kamala Harris.
07:40Here's who I am.
07:41I'm going to contrast myself with with Donald Trump.
07:45And she you know, she had a very strong, very pithy statement.
07:48You know, I prosecuted people, committed crimes, prosecuted universities, you know,
07:54who frauded people for for money, for profit.
07:59And I recognize, you know, the challenge.
08:01And so she really made that very personal, you know, against Donald Trump.
08:04And then she had another part of that speech was which was about her vision for the future
08:08and her her policy vision.
08:11It was a little less clear.
08:13Right.
08:14And so she's really going to have to hone her message really for specifically those
08:18states, those, you know, post-industrial states that Donald Trump has really been yanking
08:25at to get them into the Republican column.
08:28And she needs to craft an economic vision, maybe a foreign policy vision that speaks
08:33to those voters.
08:34All right, Sean.
08:35Thank you so much for that.
08:36Sean Safford coming in to see us here from Sciences Po University.
08:39Thank you.