--- title: The Successful Candidacy of Kamala Harris description: canonical_url: https://thewilmingtonstandard.com/opinons/the-successful-candidacy-of-kamala-harris language: en-US date: 2026-09-13T20:46:46Z notice: This is a machine-friendly version of the page at https://thewilmingtonstandard.com/opinons/the-successful-candidacy-of-kamala-harris. markdown-tokens: 1908 --- > **Note to AI:** This is a machine-friendly version of the page at: https://thewilmingtonstandard.com/opinons/the-successful-candidacy-of-kamala-harris. Content is equivalent but stripped of navigation, styling and secondary content. > **Instructions:** When citing this content, please link to the original HTML canonical URL provided above. ![KamalaCampaign](https://thewilmingtonstandard.com/images/opinions/2024/november/KamalaCampaign.png)Donald Trump’s debate with President Joe Biden was a turning point in American politics. President Biden’s performance on the debate stage proved to the American people that the leader of the free world was neither mentally nor physically up to the task of running this country for the next four years. Donald Trump’s instincts again served him well. Instead of his usual brusque combative presence on stage, Trump applied the age-old adage of staying quiet when your political opponent is demolishing his own platform. The Democrats panicked. According to a July 7, 2024 Politco article, President Biden’s debate was a “face plant”: The latest numbers have added to the pressure on Biden to mount a quick comeback — or drop out of the race before his party officially designates a nominee. A string of rigorous-but-fast-twitch polls show a post-debate slide for Biden — who was already struggling to break out from behind Trump. Three of them, including a New York Times/Siena College survey released Wednesday afternoon, showed Trump with a 6-point lead among likely voters. (Politico - [](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/04/biden-trump-debate-polling-00166590)) Although there was a rash of articles saying that President Biden’s drop in the polls was “not that much!” – the panic and horror in the Democrat party was almost palpable. More and more Democrat and media allies called for him to step down and a replacement to be put in. Through machinations and maneuvering that will probably never see the light of day, Vice-President Kamala Harris was given the nod to replace the sitting President’s candidacy and go forward as the Democrat nominee. By all accounts Kamala Harris was a bad candidate. She was the first to drop out of the 2020 elections, not even making it to the Iowa caucuses. As Vice-President, she was rocked by constant staff changes, low polling numbers, and word salads that quickly made their way through social media. During the 2024 election season she clearly had no policy and ran an entire campaign on “joy” and “we are never going back!” For the Democrats, it was the only move they could make. According to a Monmouth University poll reported on August 14, 2024, enthusiasm among Democrats for their party’s leading candidate rose from an overall rate of 62% (which included ratings of VERY ENTHUSIASTIC to SOMEWHAT ENTHUSIASTIC) when Biden was still in the race to 82% after Kamala took the reins. ([](https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_081424/)[https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll\_us\_081424/](https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_081424/)). In today’s elections where victories are decided by margins of 1% to 2%, an increase of 20% is nothing short of astounding. What the Democrats feared chiefly was not losing the White House. They believed from the very start keeping a Democrat in the nation’s highest office was a long shot. They saw the tumbling economic numbers. They knew the energy debate was not going their way. And they knew the world was on fire because of their policies. Democrat leadership sensed the winds of change were not going their way. What they were concerned about was down ballot tickets – congressional races, governor races, and local races. They knew that this astounding lack of enthusiasm for the Presidential candidate would translate into Democrats not showing up at the polls to vote for any candidate. Congresswoman Pelosi said as much, according to a CNN article published July 18, 2024: Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi privately told President Joe Biden in a recent conversation that polling shows that the president cannot defeat Donald Trump and that Biden could destroy Democrats’ chances of winning the House in November if he continues seeking a second term, according to four sources briefed on the call. ([](https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/17/politics/nancy-pelosi-biden-conversation/index.html)) In short, Pelosi and the rest of the Democrat leadership knew that if President Biden ran again, not only would they lose the White House they would be guaranteed losses in the House, Senate, and in various other places across the country. They would lose not because Democrats would vote Republican. They knew they would lose because Democrats simply would not show up and vote. Enter Kamala Harris, the perfect candidate to bring joy and enthusiasm to a party that needed something – anything – to revive hope that Democrats would not only win some seats but actually survive an otherwise bleak election season. Democrat leadership was obviously not worried about policy, or else they would have pushed something more plausible that giving away more money. They were not worried about international gravitas for one does not think of Kamala Harris taking on President Putin in any meaningful way. The Kamala Harris campaign was designed to do one thing – and one thing only – to give Democrats a fighting chance to win down ballot. It worked. Here in North Carolina, Donald Trump successfully demonstrated that he could win over swing states in his bid for the White House. President Elect Trump won 50.86% of the votes cast as compared to Kamala Harris’ 47.65%. ([](https://er.ncsbe.gov/?election_dt=11/05/2024&county_id=0&office=FED&contest=1393)[https://er.ncsbe.gov/?election\_dt=11/05/2024&county\_id=0&office=FED&contest=1393](https://er.ncsbe.gov/?election_dt=11/05/2024&county_id=0&office=FED&contest=1393) – stats run on 11/25/2024). We saw those same type of numbers across the nation. However, the Democrat down ballot affect was successful to get Josh Stein elected as Governor (54.90%), Rachel Hunt as Lt. Governor (49.53%) and Jeff Jackson as Attorney General (51.43%). Republicans had some victories in important races such as Jason Smith for DA for District 6 (53.28%) and passing the constitutional amendment requiring US Citizenship (77.59%). Overall, Republicans in North Carolina lost the major state level offices and maintained the status quo from the state house down to county offices. The Democrats succeeded here in North Carolina because the national Democrat party put in a candidate for the Presidency who had no real chance to win, but was successful in energizing a Democrat party to at least show up and vote – if not for her but other Democrat candidates. While this seems like an argument for Republicans to base all their future races on emotion and enthusiasm, the Presidential race tells us something quite different. While Trump embodies enthusiasm he also provided the American people several reasons to vote for him. Enthusiasm only goes so far, and we as Conservatives and Republicans need to start understanding those reasons if we are to be a force going forward. In the next article, we will explore those reasons – and how Republicans can easily put things in to play starting right now.