Kamala Harris Puts All Her Chips on Iowa

The California senator has settled on a strategy that is absolutely dependent on her doing extremely well in the first-in-the-nation caucuses.

It’s hard to assign a firm cause and effect to it, but Kamala Harris’s presidential candidacy has been in a steady decline ever since she challenged Joe Biden in a June debate over comments he had made about working with segregationist Democrats in the 1970s. Initially, the reviews suggested that Harris had the better of that exchange, but there’s been no subsequent data to support that contention. If she did any damage to Biden at all, it seems that other contenders were the beneficiaries.

Harris huddled with top campaign officials Tuesday in Baltimore to discuss the next steps as a series of polls show her plummeting into the mid-single digits. She’s not expected to significantly alter her message. Instead, Harris is planning to make weekly visits to [Iowa] and nearly double the size of her 65-person ground operation, sources familiar with the discussions told POLITICO.

Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status creates a conundrum for candidates of both parties in every cycle where an incumbent president isn’t in the running. It’s almost insignificant in the raw number of delegates it offers, and the caucuses only loosely determine how those delegates will eventually be allocated, but a poor performance can nonetheless be fatal. It’s probably more important to do better than expected than it is to win outright because Iowa is almost exclusively a perceptions game. For this reason, if you’re going to lose badly, there is a decent incentive to create the impression in advance that you weren’t even trying to contest the state. The worst of all worlds is to put all your chips on Iowa and then get a bad result.

But that’s the risk Harris is taking.

By confiding (a little too loudly) to Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii that she’s “fucking moving to Iowa,” Harris inadvertently told the world that her strategy now depends on getting a good result there. Another option would be to tell the world that it’s not a optimal state for her and lower expectations. She could tell everyone that she’s putting her chips on New Hampshire. In truth, though, neither state is ideal.

Iowa and New Hampshire are among the least racially diverse states in the nation. At least in Iowa, Harris does not have to contend with two of the three frontrunners (Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts) representing bordering states.

Harris’s decision here looks logical even if it’s a bit forced. The third contest is the Nevada caucuses, but they have yet to have much influence in the perceptions game. Harris’s best early state on paper is South Carolina where there is a huge African-American population that has tremendous influence in the Democratic primary. But Joe Biden is dominating in the polls there and that’s unlikely to change (or benefit Harris if it does) if she does poorly in the first three contests.

She needs a win before South Carolina, or at least a much-better-than-expected result that gives people a reason to see her as a real option. Iowa is probably her best bet for accomplishing that.

If so, however, I’d advise her to do more than “move” there. She should adjust her message and even some of her proposals to fit the Hawkeye State. She should run for president of Iowa to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. She won’t likely survive to seriously contest another state if she doesn’t come in at least a strong third place there, so all her efforts will be wasted if she trims her sails or holds things in reserve out of consideration for future contests or the general election.

She also should not be shy about admitting the obvious. She should acknowledge that she’s putting it all on the line in Iowa. Lowering expectations isn’t going to help her continue on if she doesn’t do well.

Here likelihood of success is really low, in my estimation. So low, in fact, that I would have counseled against this strategy in favor of something that I think has a slightly better chance of working. Better to really lower expectations for the first three contests and “move” to South Carolina with the idea of trying to take second place there. Let the field get winnowed down and hope that Biden falters a bit, which would make her start to look more attractive as an alternative to wither Warren or Sanders, whichever emerges stronger going into South Carolina.

California is the biggest prize in the Super Tuesday contest after South Carolina, and she might have a chance of coming out of that day with the biggest win.

I suspect that fundraising considerations precluded her from taking this strategy. Without early wins, she probably wouldn’t have the money to campaign through Super Tuesday. Yet, even acknowledging that hurdle, I see it as a modestly better bet than putting everything on Iowa.

In any case, it’s too late to change now. Pursuing my strategy is premised on conspicuously not competing in Iowa.

 

Author: BooMan

Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.

13 thoughts on “Kamala Harris Puts All Her Chips on Iowa”

  1. I would assume she spoke to Warren. Warren needs her out ASAP because once her votes are distributed the race is over. Iowa seems late to me, but she has to take her shot. It’s far, far past time that Warren makes her an offer. And because we don’t have to worry about a flipped senate seat, the offer should be ‘whatever you want’.

    I like her, I want her to be POTUS. Her as POTUS and Castro as VP would be an interesting pairing as candidates, and revenge troll the racists. But it looks like her best shot is in the future. Time will have solved the delusional octogenarian aspirations.

    .

  2. Harris’s problem has been an entire exercise in showing what happens when you don’t really know why you’re running for the office. Her problems haven’t been ideological, although she should have went the more moderate wing out of the gate. She’s still finding her place and what she really stands for beyond “I want the chair”. No one can name her message. Other candidates don’t have this problem.

    When I was in college I ran for a council position for my co-Ed service organization, and I did so one semester after pledging. Why was I running? Because half of the organization talked and whispered about what a good fit for that leadership role that I would be. I ran because people thought that I should, and it seemed fine enough to me. I lost that election by one vote, but I’m glad that I did. I realized I didn’t know where I fit within the organization yet, that I wasn’t qualified, and the other person would do a much better job. I see a lot of similarities with Harris.

  4. Candidates who win have brilliant campaign strategies and tactics. Candidates who lose have terrible ones.

    The “move to Iowa” strategy is terrible if you’re Dick Gephardt in 2004…but brilliant if you’re John Kerry in 2004. I suspect one factor in Harris’ decision is what winning Iowa did for Barack Obama in 2008: demonstrate that white people would vote for him, and therefore African-Americans wouldn’t be wasting their vote by supporting him.

    If that calculation still holds, then Harris needs a win (or at least, a very strong showing) before South Carolina to show that state’s Black voters she’s worth voting for. If she wins South Carolina and can compete in Super Tuesday, she’s got as good a chance as anyone.

    It does look like her success depends on Biden’s campaign imploding. (Which has happened twice before.)

  5. She’s a decent enough politician- I’ve certainly voted for her a couple of times now, but I think she doesn’t have enough experience yet to be president. Plus she does have somewhat of a mixed record- as attorney general she was late to the table on the financial crisis and didn’t particularly distinguish herself and of course there’s the *cough* Mnuchin.issue, which potentially could be fatal in the general, in my mind.

    I thought that Harris would probably run more of an Obama V2.0 campaign- lots of inspirational talk to the base, while making sure the big money donors kept their seat at the table, but that role seems to be now taken up as much by Buttigieg, surprisingly.

    But honestly, I think she, and a few other of the candidates, are perfectly happy with running a campaign that just raises their national profile. Almost any of the major candidates that doesn’t get the nomination probably has non-zero chance of getting the VP slot or a prominent cabinet position if the Democrat wins the presidency, or even playing kingmaker if the race doesn’t break decidedly in one direction and the delegate count is split between candidates at the convention. If I were advising her, I would tell her to play the long game- don’t take unnecessary risks, don’t make gaffs, raise the favorability rating, get on TV around the country. There will undoubtedly be a next time if things don’t go her way this campaign. I certainly wouldn’t spend the rest of it sitting in Iowa.

    1. Since you set up the punchline, I’ll give it to you: Beto O’Rourke. The joke would be on him if Biden collapses, as I think Sanders, Warren, and Buttigieg would benefit more.

  8. Harris’ attack on Biden, which launched her campaign into a near virtual tie with the front runner for a short period, was always a thin reed on which to build a winning campaign. The sugar-high TV drama of it was the only reason her campaign reached the high-water mark it did. Her percentage of support soon after dropped back to levels that really were more realistic for her campaign, given her overall performance.

    I recall not too long after her Biden moment, Harris was at a Q&A session with Warren and other candidates before an audience of black women voters. And although she got a lot of applause, it was Warren who was really connecting with the audience.

    I believe what accounts for Harris current position in the polls is Warren simply outperformed her in the space she wanted to occupy.

    1. Harris is very much an elite establishment type and those just havent gotten any traction outside of Biden who occupied the space thanks to Obama nostalgia.

    2. >>Warren simply outperformed her in the space she wanted to occupy
      Warren is outperforming all the rest IMO. I disagree that Harris wanted to be in that space; Harris seems to have wanted to be portrayed as farther left than she is. The waffling about what she really supports for health care was notable.
      I’m in CA and have voted for Harris several times and probably will again, but from day 1 she’s been promoted by big money interests and been more notable for ambition than ability.

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