Brooks and Capehart on Harris’ appeal and the new race for the White House

New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart join Geoff Bennett to discuss the whirlwind week in politics that has completely changed the race for the White House with Kamala Harris the new candidate at the top of the Democratic ticket and Donald Trump back on the campaign trail after an assassination attempt.
Geoff Bennett:
It has been a whirlwind week in politics that has completely changed the race for the White House.
We turn now to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That’s New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.
Great to see you both.
Jonathan Capehart:
Hey, Geoff.
Geoff Bennett:
Lots to discuss, because, in just the last five days, President Biden announced that he would end his reelection campaign. He quickly endorses Kamala Harris. She quickly amasses the delegates that she needs to clinch the nomination. That’s accompanied by a historic fund-raising haul, lots of enthusiasm and energy on the Democratic side.
And then today, former President Barack Obama officially endorsed her to be the Democratic nominee.
Barack Obama, Former President of the United States: We called to say Michelle and I couldn’t be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office.
Geoff Bennett:
So, David, how has her ascension to the top of the ticket, how has this changed the fundamentals of the race?
David Brooks:
Well, first, when Biden was the candidate, 37 percent of Democrats were excited by the ticket. Now 81 percent of Democrats are excited. So that’s a big change.
Basically, I think what she’s done, they’re now tied, more or less. And so they’re not where they were — well, let’s start — in 2020, Joe Biden won 70 percent of non-white voters. That was in 2020. By 2024, he was down to 51 percent of non-white voters. She’s now up already to 63 percent.
So the bottom line is, she’s not where Biden was in 2020, but she’s a lot better than where Biden was in 2024. And this is a pattern you see replicated in state — in pattern after pattern. In Michigan, in Minnesota, in all these swing states. She’s not quite where Biden was in 2020, but she’s way above where he was before.
And so the race is basically even right now.
Geoff Bennett:
That’s interesting, because Jen O’Malley Dillon, who was the Biden campaign chair, now the Harris campaign chair, she put out a memo and basically said what David said, that Harris’ ability to reach Black voters, Latino voters, voters under 30, it opens up different pathways to 270 electoral votes.
Do you agree with that? And then how do Democrats sustain this energy for the next 101 days to the election?
Jonathan Capehart:
To your — the answer to your first question, yes, I agree with that.
I’m not worried about Democratic enthusiasm waning. I have not seen anything like this since then-Senator Barack Obama won Iowa. Remember, up until Iowa, Black people around the country were like, no, I’m going to — he can’t win, he’s not going to win, including my own mother, who was, like, down for Hillary Clinton.
And I called her when Barack Obama won Iowa. She answers the phone and I said: “So what do you think?”
And she says: “Obama, Obama.”
(Laughter)
Jonathan Capehart:
Oh, night and day. This is what we’re seeing now with Vice President Harris.
There’s another poll. I forgot to cite where it’s from, but her lead among young voters has skyrocketed to 20 points. The memes that we’re seeing all over social media, I don’t know about coconuts and trees and brat summer and all of this stuff, but young people are talking about her.
And elections — as David always says, elections are about addition, not subtraction. And the fact that she’s now at 63 percent of non-white voters means there’s room for her to add. She can add more people.
Geoff Bennett:
Yes.
Well, and what’s interesting to me is that, David, her message hasn’t really changed from the message that President Biden was promoting. She’s talking about defending women’s reproductive rights, rejecting trickle-down economic policies, standing up for democratic norms and values. She’s putting her own spin on it, but it’s effectively the same argument.
David Brooks:
Right. I mean, she’s a pretty standard — her message has always been a pretty standard Democratic message.
I think she has two dangers. The first one is what — all the stuff she said in 2020. When the party was moving leftward, she said a lot of stuff which is just killer in swing states. I want to ban fracking. I’m going to decriminalize immigration. I’m going to get rid of the filibuster to pass the Green New Deal. It was just policy after policy that is unacceptable to swing voters.
And Republicans are already hanging that on her, and they’re showing videos of her saying all this stuff. And so she has to move away from all that stuff she said in 2020 if she wants to do win.
The second thing I think that is a danger for her is focusing on the issue of democracy and the threat to democracy. That’s an issue that really resonates with Democratic voters. It is not an issue that resonates with swing voters.
The inflation is the number one issue. She somehow has to find a way to talk about inflation that is compelling. And I think that’s possible. There is some evidence and some polling evidence, even though it’s so early, that she’s not really blamed for inflation the way Biden is.
And so she might be able to step out from that, but she really needs to develop an economic message and not think that the things that play in California are going to play in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Geoff Bennett:
What about that, Jonathan? Does she have to create — establish a vision that is somehow distinct from what President Biden has been talking about?
Jonathan Capehart:
I don’t think so, because her — the campaign speeches we have seen over the last three or four days have been really terrific, because she does talk about democracy and she does talk about having people be able to vote and have a say in their elections.
But she also does it through the framing of freedom. She doesn’t talk about autocracy. She doesn’t talk about authoritarianism. Freedom. Freedom over your reproductive health. Freedom to vote. Freedom to live the American dream, which you could fold in economics into that.
And to what David was saying about what she said during her run in 2020, there’s a big difference between what you say when you are a candidate for a party nomination and what you have done as a sitting vice president, part of an administration.
And so I’m — the two dangers you talk about, I’m not worried about those at all.
David Brooks:
I just think the huge question for me is, how much has she grown? How much has she learned? How much is she more comfortable?
Because the Kamala Harris of 2020 was a terrible, terrible candidate. and, frankly, if you go back to the Democratic conventional wisdom about Kamala Harris 18 months ago, it was failed vice president. How do we get her off the ticket? And so the Democratic Party has shifted.
And I don’t know whether this is mass hypnosis or they think, oh, she really has grown. She’s a — when she gets to be her own candidate, she’s much better than she was in 2020, much better than she was in ’22. That’s, to me, the big question.
Jonathan Capehart:
I — and I read your column today, David.
(Laughter)
David Brooks:
Good.
Jonathan Capehart:
Look, Vice President Harris in — since the revelation of the Dobbs draft has been a completely different person.
There are a couple of things that David doesn’t mention in his column that have to be taken into account. When they came into office, we were in the middle of a global pandemic. No one could go anywhere or do anything or be around — be around people. That could only have a detrimental effect for anyone coming into a brand-new job unlike anything they have ever been in before.
The second thing that you can’t discount is the fact that there was a 50/50 Senate. She couldn’t — so let’s say the pandemic wasn’t there. She still wouldn’t be able to get out and go around the country. She had to be within two hours of Washington to cast tie votes.
Once the midterm elections happened and the Democrats gained a seat in the Senate, she was literally liberated to run — race around the country to hammer away at what was happening, what the Supreme Court was going to do, and then eventually did in overturning Roe v. Wade. She’s been traveling around the country.
And she said to me in an interview in ’23 that when the Dobbs decision, the draft came out, she said to her staff — quote — “I’m getting the ‘blank’ out of Washington.” And she wanted to get out and talk — go around the country and talk to people about what was happening.
And that is where you see the transformation and the change. She is — the Kamala Harris, the vice president of Harris I’m watching in these campaign rallies and in these tarmac conversations, that is the Kamala Harris I have known and covered since 2012.
Geoff Bennett:
Well, let’s shift our focus to the Trump campaign, because we have talked about how previously the Trump campaign had a strategy that was focused entirely on defeating Joe Biden.
Now that Kamala Harris is atop the ticket, Republicans have launched a range of attacks.
Donald Trump, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: So now we have a new victim to defeat, lying Kamala Harris.
Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY):
Well, I think she’s one of the weakest candidates I have ever seen in the history of our country, I mean, intellectually, just really kind of the bottom of the barrel. I think she was a DEI higher.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR):
She is a failed San Francisco liberal.
Geoff Bennett:
So what is the Republican strategy here now that the Democratic ticket has changed?
David Brooks:
Well, they’re throwing everything at her for right now, because they don’t quite know what to do.
I think their strongest argument is the Tom Cotton argument that she’s a San Francisco liberal. It happens to be true. They have got all this video of her saying things. It should be said she’s not liberal by San Francisco standards, but she’s liberal by most of America’s standards.
And it’s just a fact that she’s the son of academics. Nothing wrong with that. I’m the children — child of academics, but she’s from San Francisco. It’s very easy to tell that story, she’s not quite — she doesn’t really understand your life. She wants to decriminalize the border. We know that would be terrible for your life.
She wants to ban fracking Pennsylvania. We know that would be terrible for your economy. And so, to me, that’s their simplest and best argument, and they should drop all the other stuff.
Geoff Bennett:
Jonathan, when you hear that, what do you hear?
Jonathan Capehart:
Which part? Oh, you mean what David said or the clips?
Geoff Bennett:
Well, the range of attacks.
Jonathan Capehart:
Look, any time a leader has to tell his members to cut it out with the racist and sexist comments, you have a problem.
If that’s your default, you have a serious problem in your party. And I’m sure there are lots of women, African Americans, people of color who find having the sitting vice president called a DEI hire or another member of Congress — member of Congress who said that she is only now in the position because Democrats couldn’t throw her off because of her ethnic background, that’s insulting.
It’s incredibly insulting for someone who has asked the people of San Francisco, asked the voters of California to make her DA and then California attorney general, not once but twice, the people who voted for her for vice president.
And to your point about — David, about her being the child of academics, yes, her father was a professor at Stanford, her mother was a cancer researcher. But she was also a woman of color. And when you are a person of color in this country, it does not matter your academic credentials, your parents’ academic credentials, where you live, where you went to school, what kind of job you have.
Your world view is not one that’s in a bubble. It’s not one that is shrouded in elitism. Your feet are firmly on the ground, and you know that the rest of the country is not going to view you in the way that you just described Vice President Harris.
And I think that’s what gives her the power that she has.
Geoff Bennett:
Jonathan Capehart and David Brooks, I’m sorry we’re out of time.
(Laughter)
David Brooks:
I have a response.
Jonathan Capehart:
Your turn this week.
Geoff Bennett:
Ten seconds?
David Brooks:
I would just say, why did she take those crazy positions in 2020?
Geoff Bennett:
OK, to be continued next week.
(Laughter)
Geoff Bennett:
Thank you both.