Kamala Harris has chosen a different strategic presidential campaign path from that of Hillary Clinton, the first female presidential nominee from a major party, who highlighted her gender throughout her 2016 run, Politico reported Monday.
In contrast, Harris — the first Black woman and South Asian American person to lead a major party ticket — so far has not heavily promoted the history-making features of her campaign in ads or in her stump speeches.
Instead, Harris is talking about her middle-class upbringing and prosecutorial track record.
Politico's interviews with two dozen elected officials, consultants, and Harris allies, almost all of whom are women, revealed that Harris' strategy is based on the assumption that swing voters are prepared to vote for a woman for president, but care far more about her record and platform.
Former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, who ran in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary and was the first Black woman to serve in the Senate, weighed in.
"Quite frankly, talking about, I'm the first Black this, I'm the first that, gets you nowhere," she told Politico. "It really puts you in a corner and leaves you open to being accused of 'playing the race card,' and so she has not done that, and that's very smart of her."
Moseley Braun also said that it's important that Harris is "inheriting a different kind of playing field," where "times have changed" and "people are more open to women doing these things."
Since 2016, the visibility of women and women of color in positions of power has grown significantly. Women now represent 28% of Congress, compared to less than 20% in 2016. In addition, twice as many women governors are in office now than eight years ago, according to Rutgers University's Center for American Women and Politics.
Harris is taking a similar approach to that of former President Barack Obama, who mostly did not discuss his race in his own historic 2008 campaign, Politico reported. Even as Obama benefited from the enthusiasm of Black Americans for his candidacy, he spent most of his time speaking to a broader electorate, especially the white swing voters he needed to win battleground states.
This past weekend Harris embarked on a bus tour across western Pennsylvania, a predominantly white area where many union Democrats-turned-Trump supporters live.
"She will have to bring in more of those voters who see themselves living on the outskirts of hope. They're the voters that Trump picked up. ... Remember, Obama had them," said Donna Brazile, a former Democratic National Committee chair who is part of a small group of women Harris turns to for advice. "Now she has to get them. And the same way that Barack Obama appealed to them, you have to appeal to them based on values and they know that you care for them, that you see them."
People who have known Harris for a long time said the approach isn't new for her, after having shattered barriers as district attorney, attorney general and senator. As a candidate in California, she did not like questions about her identity, seeing them as a distraction from her campaign's focus on values.