Opinion: Kamala Harris Needs to Be More Than ‘Brat’ to Beat Trump

The numbers tell the story. In less than five days, 35,000 people registered to vote, almost all of them (83 percent) between 18 and 34, the demographic that was key to the coalition that sent Barack Obama to the White House. In three days, the Kamala Harris campaign raised $126 million, signaling an enthusiasm for a Democratic nominee that hasn’t been apparent since 2008 with Obama (whose endorsement of her was confirmed Friday).

After a stunningly swift and flawless rollout of a presidential campaign, Vice President Harris topped it off by joining TikTok, where she’s already a sensation embraced by Gen Z. Young people love her laugh and the cautionary line from her mother, “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?”

The phrase went viral along with lime green “Brat” and it’s all good whether you know what it means or not. The denizens of social media love Harris, and they’ve transformed a negative the GOP spent years cultivating that Harris has a “crazy laugh,” or a witch’s “cackle,” into a rallying cry for a candidacy that has upended the campaign.

“She’s fun and relatable,” Santiago Mayer, executive director of Voices of Tomorrow, told CNN. Mayer was 17 when he migrated from Mexico City to Los Angeles and quickly became involved in city council and state senate campaigns, signing on as student leader for the Biden-Harris campaign. He’s now 21, his website says he’s got more than 180,000 followers on social media, and he’s all in for Harris.

Harris has access to young voters in a way that President Biden , for all his good intentions, never could, and policies directed to appeal to this demographic. The November election is a “base” election. Whichever side best mobilizes its base and can add independents will win.

Harris has two inflection points ahead; her choice of a vice president, which will tell us a lot about her judgment and ability to play the game of addition when it comes to diversifying the ticket she tops. Then there’s the Convention, which begins Aug. 19 in Chicago, and will showcase the Democratic message and candidates.

This isn’t the first time Harris has wowed the electorate. She kicked off her 2020 campaign in Oakland in an arena that held 10,000 people. Outside, another 12,000 lined the streets hoping to get a glimpse of the candidate. She highlighted her 25-year career as a prosecutor and vowed to fight for health care, education and immigration reforms.

It was the high point of her short-lived campaign. She never found her footing in the crowded field and except for one well-landed attack on Biden over bussing kids to achieve integration—“I was that girl,” Harris exclaimed—her campaign lost ground and she was gone before the Iowa caucuses.

She wasn’t clear where she stood on the motivating domestic issues, siding with rival candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on Medicare-for-all, then shifting her stance and ending up confusing voters, and herself, about where she stood.

Running with Biden in 2020 and then being by his side for much of his presidency, capped by months of campaigning in key states on reproductive rights and other freedoms championed by Democrats, has made Harris a much better candidate.

Her sense of confidence was striking from the moment she walked into the room to meet Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. She could be president, he better pay attention, is what she telegraphed. After the meeting, she stood before a row of American flags to call for a ceasefire now and return of the hostages. It was Biden’s position delivered with force and conviction. “Israel has a right to defend itself and how it does so matters,” she said.

Harris will be confronted by things she’s said in the past that she will have to navigate in today’s political climate. A clip has surfaced from June of 2020 where she says cities were “militarizing police” but “defunding public schools.” She said the “defund the police” movement “rightly” questioned the size of police budgets, and that more police did not necessarily mean more public safety.

Portraying her as soft on crime will be hard given her 25-year career in law enforcement as a prosecutor in San Francisco and then attorney general. “No way, she can Sister Souljah that in a heartbeat,” says Paul Equale, a longtime Democrat, lawyer and former lobbyist. “There are more photos of Kamala Harris in police gear than Rudy Giuliani, and unlike him, she looks good in it.” (Sister Souljah was a young rap singer whose racist lyrics, offensive mainly to white people, prompted then candidate Bill Clinton to criticize her and gain points with voters. Her name is synonymous with a politician standing up against his or her base.)

Can Harris sustain the level of enthusiasm that has awakened an electorate that a week ago was in despair? So far, the answer is yes.

“I’m a hardened pro, and I’m very excited about this,” Equale told The Daily Beast. The day Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris, he and his adult daughter together made small contributions to the Harris campaign, “And I just bought a way over-priced Kamala Harris for president T-shirt for my wife’s birthday next month.” Millions of voters are doing the same, and they didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree.

Read more at The Daily Beast.