Big difference in optics as Ds pitch to a new generation
Hoosier Democrats quickly rally behind Vice President Kamala Harris (D) as their presidential candidate-in-waiting. Indiana’s entire Democratic National Convention delegation – comprised of 88 delegates – votes unanimously on a Zoom call Monday evening to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris (D) for president . . . though these pledges are non-binding.
Indiana’s Democratic delegates were originally pledged to President Joe Biden (D) based on the results of the Indiana Democratic Primary in May, but are now legally unbound to any specific candidate after his decision to leave the race.
In a separate vote and meeting, the Indiana Democratic State Central Committee Monday unanimously passed a resolution endorsing Vice President Harris to replace President Biden on the ballot, and the mayors of Anderson, Bloomington, Evansville, Gary, Lawrence, Michigan City, and South Bend (hmm, no Indianapolis or Fort Wayne on that list) joined some 250 Democratic mayors nationally in signing a statement endorsing Vice President Harris for the presidential nomination.
All of these mechanics fell into place fewer than 36 hours after the Sunday afternoon Biden withdrawal announcement.
Your takeaway is that Hoosier Democrats are expressing excitement about adding a woman to the top of a ticket that will now likely feature women running for president, governor, U.S. Senate, and attorney general, while Republicans will field a ticket with men running for president, vice president, governor, lieutenant governor, U.S. Senate, and attorney general – nary a woman to be found.
Note as well that Democrats offer a ticket with Gen X women running for president and governor against male Baby Boomers in their 70s . . . a significant difference in optics considering the generational change we have seen in the Hoosier electorate as Boomers age out (the first Baby Boomer from Indianapolis, former Rep. Ed Mahern (D), turned 78 on January 1), and the final years of millennials and the first cohort of Generation Z voters creep toward the age of 30. No one has yet explored this key transformation in any depth locally.
Republicans also recognized this; U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) the GOP vice presidential nominee, becomes the first millennial to join a major party presidential ticket.
Democrats tell us that they believe that the diversity will allow them to even more dramatically detail the difference between Republicans and Democrats on what they label as women’s health freedom issues, while they look for the presence of a Black candidate at the top of the ballot to kick up Democratic turnout specifically in Marion County and Lake County among constituencies that had appeared largely apathetic about the fall ticket.
They also hope to capitalize on the confluence of circumstances to boost voter registration among young Hoosiers who were unenthusiastic about dragging themselves to the polls to choose between an 81-year-old or a 78-year-old presidential candidates.
Vote.org reveals Wednesday that “In the 48 hours after President Biden’s announcement on Sunday, we registered nearly 40,000 voters – an almost 700% daily increase in new registrations. That’s the largest number of new voters registered over a 48 hour period we’ve seen this entire cycle.”
One has to think that a Gen X Democratic presidential candidate (and a millennial GOP VP candidate) could also, for example, motivate Purdue University students to register who might have otherwise not been excited about the ages of the presidential candidates, or voting for a 79-year old Republican congressional candidate who is effectively unopposed; a 70-year-old Republican candidate for governor who is viewed as the presumptive winner; or an 85-year-old Democratic state legislator who is not truly being challenged.
You should also remember the spike of 35,000+ new voters who registered at Vote.org after Taylor Swift posted a link on her Instagram Stories site last fall . . . and bear in mind that while Swift has not yet backed a candidate for president this year, she brings her mega (if not MAGA) tour to Indianapolis Friday, November 1 through Monday, November 4 – with her final concert the night before Election Day, giving her a huge and highly visible Circle City-based platform for encouraging voter turnout locally and nationally.
The confluence of circumstances has persuaded the Democratic Governors Association to become involved in the Hoosier gubernatorial race . . . and the Democratic National Committee is also now said to be taking a look at helping to financially jumpstart the gubernatorial campaign of Dr. Jennifer McCormick (D), who has failed to make significant fundraising progress, as we pointed out last week when we detailed campaign finance reports as of June 30.
Republicans suggest to us that the united party they have emerging from the Republican National Convention and attendant excitement and post-Butler buzz about their standard-bearer will further spur Trump voters to turn out on Election Day . . . and, more quietly, they expect that rural Republicans will be incentivized to vote against the progressive policies that would be advanced in a potential Harris Administration.
They also see an opportunity to pound away at Harris on immigration issues, tying her to any Democrat in an environment where polling shows even Democrats and independents becoming more concerned about current and recent border policies.
When she visited Indianapolis Wednesday (more on that below), the Indiana Republican Party wasted no time welcoming “Biden’s border czar,” and observing that “Hoosiers know that a Harris presidency would be MORE RADICAL than the last four years have been. Biden was supposed to be a reasonable Democrat; imagine what Kamala would be like.”
The state GOP adds that “Kamala Harris has a track record of supporting radical policies throughout her career. She does not represent Hoosiers or regular Americans. Harris failed to prosecute criminals to the fullest extent of the law when she was a prosecutor. Harris has expressed support for sanctuary cities, and said ‘we need to probably think about starting from scratch’ when referring to ICE. Harris encouraged people to donate to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which bailed rioters out of jail. Harris supports defunding the police and decriminalizing illegal immigration.” They also never used her elected office title.
U.S. Sen. Mike Braun (R), the Republican nominee for governor, Added these choice words Wednesday: “Joe Biden tasked Kamala Harris to be our border czar, and it’s been an unmitigated disaster, as every day thousands of illegal immigrants are following through our southern border with an end goal of either taking Hoosier jobs or bringing drugs to our state, and it needs to stop. With Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and myself, we will secure our southern border, make our communities safe again, and enact my Freedom and Opportunity Agenda to grow our economy and keep Indiana great.”
Lots of national eyebrows were raised when Fort Wayne was designated as one of Sen. Vance’s first campaign stops and Vice President Harris kept a speaking commitment Wednesday in Indianapolis, addressing 6,000 members of the historically Black Zeta Phi Beta sorority’s annual Grand Boulé (a perfect platform for prolonging the dose of “Kamalamania” experienced in her first days of candidacy) at the Indiana Convention Center in lieu of a high-profile appearance on camera sitting on the rostrum behind Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu during his own speech to Congress.
The Indiana Democratic Party billed this as “one of her first stops along the campaign trail” before noting that “The event is not open to the public, and is an official event through the Office of the Vice President.”
We expect you to see a super PAC make some political hay out of that decision as the race ramps up . . . but Sen. Vance was also coincidentally in Indiana the same day, skipping the Israeli prime minister’s moment to raise campaign cash in the Summit City.
Indiana has not seen that kind of early attention from both major party national tickets since the 2008 presidential race in which the Hoosier State was actually in play (in the pre-supermajority days in the General Assembly).
The bottom line is that, of course, Democrats have no legitimate hope of winning the state’s 11 electoral votes (or even meaningfully closing the expected gap) absent some new and unforeseen earth-changing event or events (of which we’ve seen three in the presidential campaign in the last month with the debate, assassination attempt, and Biden withdrawal; volatility is the rule, rather than the exception, rendering a proverbial “October surprise” a political anachronism) . . . but Ds do have high hopes about changing the trajectory of some down-ballot races, and those may well be turnout-dependent.
They have literally the same number of days (107) to capitalize on the Biden-for-Harris switch as Republicans did in 2016 when the top of the Indiana state ticket saw then-Lt. Governor Eric Holcomb (R) take over the gubernatorial nomination from a struggling Gov. Mike Pence (R) (106 days) . . . and Republicans then effectively had to raise cash for the Holcomb campaign from scratch, while VP Harris arguably should be able to inherit the Biden-Harris Democratic dollars.
Hoosier Democrats in 2016 also were forced to make a major pivot from a focus on the Pence record in a time of changing social mores to drawing contrasts with Holcomb, a candidate who had never been elected to office, just like national Republicans are now having to revise their entire campaign playbook which had been predicated upon Biden age and competency issues, problematic family ties, and his record . . . but they plan to tie every Democrat from top to bottom to Biden in a pejorative sense. Attorney General Todd Rokita (R) details this strategy in a tweet early this week: “Let’s be clear – every Indiana Democrat candidate has the same policies as Joe Biden. They are for open borders, inflationary spending, and woke ideology,” the AG asserts.
Demos hope to capitalize on the candidacy of Destiny Wells (D) (in the current vernacular, IS she brat?) in the attorney general race – even as some of the undertones that led to a convention challenge remain floating around Marion County – and point to a half-dozen legislative races, focused on Hamilton County and the metro donut, that they seek to flip and which they see being aided in the donut by having women at the top of the ticket.
Republicans also are looking to add some House seats, and some of those (such as in The Region) may fare better with a new face atop the Democratic ticket, while there may be no impact on seats targeted by each side in southeastern and north central districts.