Credit: (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

With President Biden’s withdrawal from the race, the Democratic Party has coalesced support around Vice President Kamala Harris, who received big-name endorsements in less than 24 hours after the shocking announcement.

Harris has said she plans to “earn” the party’s presidential nomination.

While the Democratic Party wades into the unknown over these next few weeks, some political experts are hopeful that a Harris nomination could usher in a new moment for the party, which has disenchanted many of its voters over the last year.

“I think there’s a potential for hope and change, and I think that that’s why this moment is exciting, because so many voters in America just felt like, ‘Really? Our options are Biden and Trump?’” said Sadaf Jaffer, a former state Democratic assemblywoman from Hunterdon County.

Part of what has left voters disaffected, Jaffer said, was Biden’s stance on Israel and the war in Gaza. Over 700,000 voters cast “uncommitted” ballots in primaries this year, not voicing their support for the president.

A different kind of campaign?

Biden’s withdrawal shows that the party was listening to what voters wanted, especially young voters and voters of color, said Jaffer. She said this adds importance to how Harris will define her campaign and how she will champion her record with the Biden administration but also move away from it.

“I hope that we do see a shift that is more humane, that is more in line with the values of voters, especially the vast majority of Democratic voters, over 80% who have wanted a ceasefire for months,” said Jaffer.

A Harris presidency would be historic. Not only would she be the first woman president, but she would be the first Black woman president and the first Asian American president. However, the polls don’t show clearly whether potential voters would support Harris over former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.

Voters have been disengaged from this year’s election, in part due to inflation, the crisis in Gaza and lack of enthusiasm for the presidential options. According to a Pew Research Center poll in April,  about half of registered voters would replace both Biden and Trump on the ballot. Another Gallup poll said that 41% of voters are less enthusiastic about voting this year.

Age and other issues

At 59, Harris is younger than both Biden and Trump in a race where their ages had been a significant factor. As attorney general of California and a prosecutor in San Francisco, Harris has executive experience, as well as time in the U.S. Senate representing that state. Some of the areas she has focused on, including maternal health care and abortion access, are key issues among voters this election.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Harris has campaigned across the country for abortion access. She has long championed women’s rights, in which context she is perhaps best known for her line of questioning about Roe during U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation hearing in 2019.

When Harris ran for president in 2019, she dropped out before primary voting began. Her campaign had funding issues and was faulted for having a fragmented and confused policy platform. In some ways her image as a strong interrogator on the Senate Judiciary Committee was in stark contrast to her earlier presidential campaign. Now Harris has just three months to distinguish herself as a presidential candidate and engage people who had been turned off by the Biden-Trump matchup.

Her record in California

Her record as California’s attorney general will also come into play. Harris supported progressive policies, like opposing capital punishment and creating a reentry program for first-time offenders. But she also had a “tough-on-crime” approach as the state’s top law enforcement officer, and some critics said she did not do enough to end racial profiling in policing.

Harris has worked to move away from the image that defined her time as attorney general. After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, she co-sponsored legislation to ban chokeholds and has often been left of Biden on criminal justice reform issues.

Former U.S. Senate Democratic candidate Patricia Campos-Medina, who is also a political strategist, said it is “legitimate” to ask Harris about her criminal justice record and said she isn’t the perfect candidate. But she believes Harris’s nomination will energize the base, especially young voters and Black and brown voters who “understand what’s at stake” with a Trump presidency.

“She will look much younger than Trump. And if Trump is true to himself, he will use all kinds of racist tropes to attack her, misogynistic tropes to attack her, to keep his base. But he cannot win just with his base,” said Campos-Medina.