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VP to Nominee: VP Harris's 100-day sprint to Election Day
On this week's episode of What's at Stake, hosts Bryan DeAngelis and Ylan Mui talk to Penta Senior Partner Stacy Kerr about the entry of Vice President Kamala Harris into the presidential race and the implications of her campaign for families, businesses, and other stakeholders.
Together, they parse through her policy differences with President Biden as well as how she could change the electoral map for Democrats. And of course, they play the popular Washington parlor game of predicting who she might pick as her vice president.
Tune in for a compelling discussion of the 100-day sprint to Election Day – and beyond.
Welcome to this week's episode of what's at Stake. We're your hosts. Brian DeAngelis, a partner here at Penta.
Speaker 2:And I'm Ilan Mui, Managing Director at Penta's DC office.
Speaker 1:And we're here today with our fellow Penta DC senior partner, stacey Kerr, to talk about yet another twist in this unpredictable 2024 election cycle. Just a couple of days ago, president Joe Biden stepped out of the race and we're recording this the day after his Oval Office speech explaining that decision. Vice President Harris has now stepped forward. She's quenched enough delegates to secure Democratic nomination, and the activities over the past week have just been historic. They've been a little chaotic. This election now comes to a whole nother level and this is now the latest major part of candidate for president that has dropped out of the race in a few decades. And Harris is now in about a hundred day sprint to election day.
Speaker 1:So I think we wanted to gather here today because everyone's sort of wondering what does this mean from the race? Where do we go from here? What should we expect from a vice president who, naturally, her own policies took a backseat to Joe Biden's over the past four years? So, stacey, you're following this stuff closely. You've been involved in democratic politics for years. We've worked together on a lot of things. So excited to have you on the show.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you. Thanks for just a good threesome for this discussion.
Speaker 1:Yes, I want to start with just kind of the whirlwind we've been in. I mean, it feels like that debate was months ago now, but it was really just a few weeks ago and at times things felt really hot and then started to drag. But the last week has just been kind of crazy, where Biden looked like he was staying in, ended up with COVID, kind of took a step back from his public schedule for a few days, then announces via letter on Sunday that he's not going to run. And we had all speculated about this big open convention and Governor Newsom and Governor Whitmer and others jumping in, but really within I think 48 hours everyone came around Kamala Harris she's basically secured the nomination. What's your thoughts on all of this? Where does all this energy come from? How was she able to do this kind of so quickly? And I guess the million dollar question is will it last all the way to November?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, you know, I think if we look back and when history looks back on this, we were all living sort of the hour by hour. Will he won't? He looks like he's going now, looks like he's going now, it looks like he's digging in and, of course, for us, inside the Beltway, as we say, there was a ton of that roller coaster. The fact is, I think, when history looks back at this, the first hour into that debate performance started to feel inevitable, right, no one's going to ever walk out of a single performance and say, well, that's it, I'm hanging it up. But really, what we've just gone through since, you know, the 27th of June, I think, as you say one month ago, was really just a path to an inevitable departure of a sitting president. I think you know some remarkable discipline with the Harris team and being able to not be positioning right. They didn't have the luxury of positioning as some of the other governors that you mentioned, brian, did. So which makes to your point, brian, I think, the sort of remarkable, whatever side you sit on, the remarkable nature of the last 72 hours, you know, from Sunday to $120 million in fundraising, locking up the delegates for the nomination and keeping up keeping others out of the race. And then I would say two other very important a clear process on how she will pick a vice presidential candidate, which will be a huge part of the administration. We can get into that and and and. Really she turned her focus right to Trump. Right, we saw her on the stump and she so. So you know how much of that was being planned, how much of that was. You know they were in a tough spot. So to come out and execute that way, I think a lot of people Again, I would say maybe she even impressed people more than she has as a vice president, coming out strong, and I think that's going to put her electorally and you know from an insider, sort of energizing the party, as you say, in about as good of position as she could be in.
Speaker 3:I think there's some real questions. You know that maybe people will ask about whether our system and all of the disruption in our world and even in our country is really, you know, should people be picking presidents a year and a half before. It feels like a lot has changed. When 14 million people voted for Joe Biden no question, nobody's denying that Right but it feels like the world changed a lot, and you know, and so the inevitability from it.
Speaker 3:It wasn't just one performance, I think it was the you know, that debate was a culmination of maybe saying the thing out loud that everybody had been sort of sort of holding their breath on quietly, but no doubt a pretty remarkable positioning out of the gate for Harris, which really puts her in a position to what we're going to talk about today, and that is she's a weekend of this and she gets to start to lay out an agenda, she gets to start to define her campaign. That's it. That's it. That is just a feat in modern politics. That is a feat regardless of the circumstances. So they do deserve credit for, you know, for acting so quickly and to really put together a full campaign. That I think people are pretty quickly, you know, as we said, falling in line and having confidence in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, as you said, pretty, pretty impressive. I mean not to not to knock her at all, but I think what one of the things that has always plagued her candidacy, even going back to the primaries for 2020, was a little bit of you know, while had the strong record, had the resume didn't always come out the gate as impressive as you thought. And a vice presidential role I think is a challenge to begin with, but especially now, to be a vice president in the role she was in. The last two vice presidents had a very clearly defined kind of elder statesman role to a younger, you know, inexperienced candidate that won for president in Obama and then George W Bush Before him. This was flipped where you had the experienced president and more of the younger generation, so hard for her to carve out a role. But now it kind of opens the question to where you said what can she do in the next 100 days to really define not only the campaign but what her agenda will look like, how she will govern, et cetera?
Speaker 3:I'll say one other point, and I'm dying to hear from Elan as to whether or not she's glad she's still a reporter or not, having gone through all of that. That would be some wild times. But just on this point, before we turn to the agenda on impressive campaigns, it should be noted we saw an incredibly impressive month for the Republicans in the Trump campaign. People know my background but if you're a watcher of politics, know my background. But if you're a watcher of politics, a very effective convention that showed a lot of unity. That was an open question, right. So pulling that off is no easy feat. I think in those weeks following the debate, a remarkably disciplined President Trump right.
Speaker 3:I don't think anybody had seen that level of discipline in a candidate and sort of there was enough focus on Biden, he didn't need to say anything that folks are pretty surprised by that. That that seems to be taking a different turn now and a fairly effective build up and roll out of a vice presidential pick in JD Vance. So really, if you, if you're just watching campaigns and sort of a mano a mano of the campaign set up, both have been, are very well positioned, really maximized what they had been given Right, trump had been given this convention, following that debate, performance and up in the air of who his candidate would be, and they, they really had some, some, some things that political campaigns in the future will mimic, you know, will look to. So really, really, some impressive science and you know mechanics of campaign on both sides, which gets us to a point where.
Speaker 3:I think in a week or two we're not going to be able to believe that this wasn't the campaign as it was set up on both sides.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it seems to me that there is an incredible amount of unity within both parties at the moment, that there is a rallying around former President Trump amongst the Republicans, you know, as he has made it through both personal and political peril Right.
Speaker 3:So there's, there's you haven't even mentioned an assassination attempt. In all of the personal, yes, personal remarkable show of strength.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely so there's there's a rally around their candidate and that Democrats now have, you know, a reason to feel more energized with, with the unity we've seen around Vice President Harris. And so I think that the stakes of the campaign and the stakes of this race are now clear for both parties. And I guess what I'm wondering is, as she embarks on this 100-day sprint toward November, you know how far and how much leeway does she feel she has to be able to stray from what has been, you know, anticipated to be a Biden 2.0 agenda, so that previously she had been seen as more progressive than President Biden. She had previously supported things like broad expansion of Medicare. She had previously supported things like a financial transaction tax. She had previously supported things like a financial transaction tax is more aggressive on where she believed tax rates should be in terms of increasing them on corporations and on the wealthy. So, you know, are those. Is she going to stay more toward the center or does she feel like she wants to carve out her?
Speaker 3:own identity and her own policy agenda, and does she even have time to do that? Does she even have a choice, right? Is that fully her choice to make? Surely, every candidate you know positions to their Biden was a, I think, widely perceived moderate candidate. Pretty quickly took a turn to progressive in governing right. So I think you're right, ilan. It is the question and I think an important part to remember in answering that is, a 100-day campaign is very different than the first 100 days in office, right? So you know, I think there is a potential and we should be prepared that there's only so much. We will know. We will see how she will position in a campaign, but I'm not sure if I were advising her and I'm not sure we're going to see a really strong forecast to what an actual administration agenda will be. So I would caution people from getting too much into what.
Speaker 3:what you might hear and see in this hundredday sprint to win might be very different than the way that she will govern right. What is required to get elected in this environment might be just different. What you're doing to both govern to keep the economy in Democrats' eyes going, in many people's eyes, get it stronger right, especially consumers, and we'll talk about that. You know regular Americans, I and I think that that is you know and your first hundred days into that, and you're starting to look at a second term. So there's a lot of pressures on the, on the campaign that I just I would be careful and I've talked to clients about let's not read too much into the immediacy of this. There's a lot that we're going to learn as this unfolds, should she win and should she. But clearly no doubt we're going to start to see some signs of what you talked about a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, In many ways I don't think the fundamentals of the campaign have shifted right. We said this a year ago. This was not going to be a campaign of ideas, a campaign about the future of the country in the sense of vision. It was very much going to be, when it was Biden-Trump, about age, about criminality, about scandal, and I think you saw this last night. President Biden teed it up nicely. They're going to frame this still as way to both carry the mantle of the Biden administration while differentiating ourselves, and she may have luck on her side here. I mean, this morning we woke up. The economy grew by, I think, two and a half percent or so, Unemployment starting to level out. It seems like we're nailing a soft landing. We could see interest rate cuts. I mean, she might be able to finally take over the economy story and tell it without the baggage that Biden would have had from the last four years of those economic pressures and inflation really hurting consumers.
Speaker 3:I'm curious, alon, talking about the economy. Brian, you're exactly right. And I'm curious, alon, from your days at CNBC and at the Washington Post, if you were and you covered the economy right, you covered business. If you were covering this, it feels to me like there's two stories on the economy. There's what you just outlined, brian, which is a very business focused right, the business indicators that are needed to maintain, and certainly consumers feel that. But there's a real sentiment and a populist sentiment in the country right now that people aren't feeling the effects of a strong economy. And I wonder, alon, you know that we may see her move more towards that sort of consumer focused economy, laying out a little bit more of what they can expect, of a vision or what's needed than just sort of running on the record. I wonder how you would be thinking about sort of those parts.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there's a couple of thoughts that I have there, stacey, one of which is she's already said, you know, maybe a way that she is both trying to carry the mantle as well as differentiate from President Biden that one pillar of her agenda is going to be a renewed focus on what Democrats call the care economy. So that is expanding paid family leave, that is expanding elder care benefits, that's expanding child care benefits, that's universal pre-K, and that's going to cost two trillion dollars, right, in order to make all of that happen at a time when we see the deficit running at over a trillion dollars a year, right? So I think that, in you know, the first half of President Biden's administration, when he had a little bit more political capital, a little bit more room to run, he was administration, when he had a little bit more political capital, a little bit more room to run.
Speaker 2:He was able to lose this type of policy.
Speaker 2:He tried and it didn't work, obviously, and there was more of a move to the middle as we got closer and closer to 2024.
Speaker 2:And so you see her already starting to revive that, and I think that is part of that appeal to the recognition that many everyday families are suffering under extremely high costs that might be exacerbated by inflation, but even without the inflation we've seen in recent years, still not great. People are still struggling to pay for child care, still struggling when they can't afford their medical bills, et cetera. So I think that part of her agenda is speaking to that. That being said, from a business standpoint, you know, Brian we've talked about this before that it seems like there's many different factions within both parties and right now, for companies, you know I think they're looking at you know the potential of a Harris administration with some trepidation, considering that she has previously supported rising the corporate tax rate to 35%, so that could be potentially a little scary. But on the other hand, you have Republicans talking about blanket tariffs on all imports, and so maybe businesses are stuck between a rock and a hard place right now and trying to pick their poison, to use lots of metaphors.
Speaker 1:Right, and it's a bit of no knowns and then no unknowns, Right. So they understood We've been talking about this all year what a Biden 2.0 administration would look like. They sort of have a good sense of what a Trump 2.0 administration would look like and there'll be tweaks around the edges. But tax reform, other major issues that we're going to deal with in 2025, it's pretty clear how some of those chess pieces would lay out on the board. I think candidly, both with the JD Vance pick, which is a much more populist wing of the Trump Republican Party, and now Harris you know, potentially that's a new administration with a potential eight years we could see a real reshaping of regulators, of how we're approaching issues like tax reform, and I think this has a lot of our clients starting to dig in and wonder OK, we've got to understand both sides really well now. What could come next for us?
Speaker 2:I was talking to one of our clients this morning actually about who would fill out the cabinet positions within an administration, and there's always a lot of focus on who's going to be Treasury Secretary, who's going to be Secretary of State. Commerce Secretary traditionally has not been one of the more powerful roles in an administration, but in this case you know that position is going to be really important because that's the position that the tariffs run through right. They're responsible for putting together the reports and sort of making the case for why tariffs should be imposed on imports, and so I think that position is going to hold a lot more power than we've historically seen, and I don't know that anyone started the cocktail conversation of who's going to sit in that chair.
Speaker 3:And the person sitting now is on the list to be vice president. So, to your point, it's a position that's certainly rising.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it begs the question I'm probably in slightly different circles, maybe with a few too many crypto clients, but that's the question around the SEC of what's going to happen. Will there be a change either way? You're seeing, I don't think it's really become a voting issue yet, but you're seeing all this talk about Trump embracing crypto. Will Kamala embrace it? She's getting advice from Mark Cuban and others and it's starting to make that industry feel hopeful that there will be someone more maybe pragmatic and open to some of what the industry is doing in the SEC chair. But we've got a long way to go there and Kamala is still pretty progressive and may need some progressive parts of the Democratic Party and the Warren wing and others to carry her over the finish line in November. So what will that look like? What truce will lead to? You know what an administration could look like on that side.
Speaker 3:And, of course, the makeup of Congress. I mean that's going to be a big, you know, open question as to whether or not. I think a lot of people feel, you know, democrats feel relief that now the House and the Senate are back in place, certainly greater chances now for for the House to swing Democratic and that will no doubt have a factor on on how she will govern and what that, what that agenda is. You know, as a strategist, do you want early wins and what's possible with that makeup? As a strategist, do you want early wins and what's possible with that makeup? You know we touched on a couple of industries and one thing that I think will be really interesting to watch also is that we've seen over the last certainly probably Biden administration and even back into the Trump administration you guys just mentioned a couple of industries that you're watching that have sort of always had advantage, clear advantage or disadvantage with a Republican or a Democratic administration.
Speaker 3:There's really been some shifts in industries like healthcare, tech, where there's actually been some bipartisan agreement on regulation or, you know, legislation, and that will just be really interesting to watch how that unfolds. You know, I don't think that folks in that industry and we see some of this Silicon Valley piece playing out with how Silicon Valley leaders are positioning right, how they were positioning before Harris and how they're now positioning, you know, coming out with Harris. But I think maybe an industry that had been traditionally more democratic is, you know, hedging its bets and a lot going on in the health care industry. A number of tax provisions in the Affordable Care Act that are that were extended under the IRA are set to expire next year. No doubt folks in the health care industry are watching that very closely, as to both who you know takes office but also who is appointed to these cabinet secretary positions that have a lot of say over how that those really really big, huge parts of the economy will get, you know, kind of done in the next 12 months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of sort of interconnectedness or maybe, as the kids would say, intersectionality, between some of the health care and the tax issues. In particular, I know that Vice President Harris had been dinged for initially supporting the idea of Medicare for all and then sort of retreating from that when she became vice president the idea of Medicare for all and then sort of retreating from that when she became vice president. And that's connected to the tax debate, because one of the ways she had planned to fund an expansion of Medicare was through, I believe, a 4% tax on income over $100,000. President Biden has said that he does not want to tax anyone who makes under $400,000. So there's a big gap there, and so one of the things that I think a lot of sort of lower income high income earners are thinking about if that makes sense is that $100,000 to $300,000 gap. Is that now in play? Because there's a lot of revenue to be had there that could fund a lot of priorities, and so I think that that's going to be an important area to watch.
Speaker 3:Really, really really good point.
Speaker 1:Yes. A good point, and there will be a lot of compromising next year with tax reform. So this is when, even if it's not a stated agenda position.
Speaker 3:you start to see these things matriculately. Yeah, no doubt there will be plenty to watch in 100 days.
Speaker 1:right, that's right, that's right. One of the other things I wanted to touch on you've seen her already start messaging wise, but her economic focus tends to be much more on families and workers and Biden had some of this. But it struck me watching the RNC to see a Teamsters leader speaking to that audience and being fairly well-received and fairly on message I thought I had too much to drink.
Speaker 3:I thought I had too much to drink, and I don't even drink.
Speaker 2:I was like what is?
Speaker 3:going on. What is going on? How many conventions have we been? To Brian, I was like, wow, this is, we're in new times.
Speaker 1:But it's another area where she can sort of separate from Biden a little bit. She's been a little more worker union side on free trade agreements on some of the worker issues, trade agreements on some of the worker issues, again at kind of that kitchen table level. Where can she make an appeal to that base, especially that base that the Democratic Party seems to have been losing to the more populous side of the MAGA wing of the Trump party over the last couple elections?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and not to bring us back to the electoral side of this, but as you watch those dynamics play out, there are big states like Nevada. I mean one of the inside the Beltway maneuvering of campaigns was, you know, a sort of a leak that that they were going to put states like Nevada back in play. Nevada has a huge, really really interesting shifting dynamics. Huge union vote, which was expected to. It was expected that President Biden likely, before any of the last six weeks happened, expected that he likely would not carry the union vote in Nevada.
Speaker 1:Which is unheard of.
Speaker 3:Culinary workers are the largest out there. So there's a lot of those. And if you look at the states that are in play Wisconsin, pennsylvania, michigan you can't deny this point that you're making Brian, that the union dynamics and the point you're making Alana on sort of that working family agenda is absolutely gonna come higher into play. I think with a 100-day campaign there's just you got to do a lot of things very quickly.
Speaker 2:So I know we said we weren't going to get into the horse race here, but we have to play the parlor game. I think we'll know by what is it? August the 7th is when the reporting is that she'll pick her, pick her vice president nominee. But what do you think, stacey? Who do you think she should go for? You know those states that are going to be so important, right? I really you know what?
Speaker 3:I could make an argument for any one of the candidates that's been on the list that I think has been an advantage for the Harris campaign in this unusual time is to have have a week of a bunch of really strong surrogates out, sort of campaigning for the job and showcasing what their chops are and attacking you know whether it's attacking Trump or articulating the strengths of Harris herself but a lot of really. I don't think people have seen that from the Democratic Party that sort of you sort of universal attacking and some really pretty clear language in attacking. So I think she's got a great pick. If I were advising her and from where I sat in the years of politics, I would honestly say go spend a day with each of these people and figure out who you can partner with the best. That's the most important thing. You can make a case that Shapiro gets you Pennsylvania. You can make a case for any of these. I think the biggest thing and I think voters will feel it, I really do I think a partnership, a true partnership, much like the one that Obama and Biden sort of articulated and in early years ran on Nothing that we saw, obviously, with Trump and Pence and really not something that was a hallmark of the Biden-Harris administration, I think.
Speaker 3:I think it's. It's sort of like the work that we do with CEOs. Now, right, like your deputies, your CEO, your business line leaders. You really, really care in disruptive times who your business line leaders are. Those are like your day in, day out partners. I think it's like actually more important than just picking somebody that's going to go off. I'm not impressed with the way that the Biden campaign or the Biden administration used the role of the vice presidency. I think there's been a lot said on that. I don't need to contribute to it and I think there's a lot of room for true partnership that really meets sort of the moment we're in, not the electoral moment, but just we even saw it with President Biden. You know, a big case against President Biden running was bringing peace in the world, america's role to bring peace in the world, uniting our country and full-time campaigning. Those are full-time jobs, all three of them, and I think you need somebody in a vice president who can really take on a big piece of the big challenges that we have.
Speaker 1:I won't disagree with any of that, but I'll say what I.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'm buying into some of the momentum from this week, but I do feel like Biden's map was shrinking and shrinking over the last few months.
Speaker 1:We were really down to the blue wall and you saw, you know, trump and Vance starting to campaign in states that look like they were going to try to run up the score a little bit. I think that dynamic shifts and I do think Kamala she's doing an event later this weekend, I think in Georgia she's going to try to make that competitive again. I think you start to look at VPs from North Carolina, from Arizona, from some other places. I'm a little old school in the sense that I think the VP should be able to carry their state or a couple couple states for you, and so if you start to think about that, I think we see people like Cooper Kelly, some others, rise up. That list could also be the true partners. I think Kelly and Harris had a great relationship in the Senate and have known each other for a while where you might get both and you might be able to really make the Republicans compete for some of these states.
Speaker 2:Yeah, alon what about you? I don't. I asked the question because I don't have an answer.
Speaker 3:Stacey, no, I do not know, being an unbiased observer is the best kind of observer to be I have.
Speaker 2:The only prognostication I'll make is that we can probably safely rule out Gavin Newsom, so two Californians I don't think are going to be on the tickets.
Speaker 3:And several candidates have taken themselves off. I think the Harris campaign made a very, you know, a smart move this week in announcing that they were looking at a number of admirals. I don't think that's the direction that she's going to go, I think you know. I think she'll choose somebody who has governing experience and can bring some of that working class you know relevancy into the, into this expedited campaign. But smart to have considered everything and you know that's what presidents do right Consider all of their options.
Speaker 1:So, yes, it is a good that was, that was good politics, that was.
Speaker 3:But I agree, you don't think Kentucky's going to come into play. We're not going to see it go.
Speaker 1:I don't think it'll be. I think this year, kelly, you know I think is interesting.
Speaker 3:The knock against. Kelly is just taking a Senate seat off.
Speaker 1:This is not the time to be taking a Democratic yeah, you do have a down governor so you can, yeah, feel that presumably pretty quickly. But but yeah, we'll, we'll see, we'll learn a lot in the next few weeks. I think Vance, you know, sent a lot of signals about where Trump is thinking and heading and Trump's way of passing the torch to a new generation. I think we saw that a little bit earlier on the Democratic side and it'll be interesting to see who she partners with on that, that move side and it'll be interesting to see who she partners with on that that move.
Speaker 3:One thing I'll close with here I'm not on the topic of vice president, but share a conversation that that I was having this week with a C-suite group of clients who we were talking about sort of the impact of you know, this dynamic that that that we've talked about on this program and before. Is that interesting that you are going to have a one term presidency with Biden or Trump Right, either of them would be a one term presidency and and that has an effect on your governing agenda. It just does, whether or not you want to say that. So I think you can't think about a Harris agenda and how she will govern without a real look that you're looking over an eight year trajectory.
Speaker 3:So some of the things that the Biden administration may be right or wrongly moved very quick on, or you just have a little bit more dynamics at play when you're looking at both a reelection and getting things done over an eight year. And again, I'll sort of end where I started on this. I think there's very few people in Harris's orbit right now wisely who are thinking about that. I think it is all hands on deck for the next hundred days and you'll have plenty of time to get to that. So I don't think we're really going to be able to read a whole lot into what will happen over those first hundred days or four years or eight years after that, but it is definitely a dynamic that will impact an agenda.
Speaker 1:Great. I think that's a strong point to end on and a lot to unpack over the next couple hundred days. So we'll certainly return to it on a future episode. But, stacey, thank you so much for jumping in today and sharing your thoughts on all the craziness that's taking place this week.
Speaker 3:I think we'll be having many more of these conversations.
Speaker 1:Yes, we will. And to all our listeners, tune in for more of those conversations and remember to like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can follow us on X at PentaGRP and on LinkedIn at PentaGroup. I'm your host, brian, here with Elan and, as always, thanks for listening to what's at Stake.