Kamala Harris and Incumbency Curse
The sitting Vice President isn't getting blamed for the economy.
The Atlantic‘s Derek Thompson asks, “Can Kamala Harris break the global incumbency curse?“
The setup:
More than 60 countries, home to half the global population, are holding or have already held national elections this year. What many political analysts forecast as “the year of democracy” is turning out to be the year of the insurgents, as ruling parties fall around the world.It is a trend that Democrats are desperately hoping won’t apply to Kamala Harris this November.
After 14 years in power, the U.K.’s Conservative Party faced its worst-ever electoral defeat. The far-right party Alternative for Germany surged in European Parliament elections, as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats suffered their own worst-ever defeat. South Africa’s African National Congress lost its majority for the first time since the end of apartheid. South Korea’s conservatives were knocked out of power, and in Senegal, the ruling coalition fell to an anti-corruption candidate. In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi—by some accounts the most popular leader in the world—held on after a surprisingly tight election. And in France’s snap elections, voters lurched toward the far right in an initial round before consolidating behind a left-wing government in the ensuing runoff.
The most universal theme of these results has not been the rise of far-right populism or the ascendency of far-left socialists. It has been the downfall of the establishment, the disease of incumbency, a sweeping revolt against elites. Voters of the world are sick and tired of whoever’s in charge. “By and large, people are unhappy with their governments, much more unhappy with their governments than they were 10 or 20, 30, 40 years ago,” Steve Levitsky, a government professor at Harvard, told NPR. “So, with some exceptions, being an incumbent is increasingly a disadvantage.”
While he blames some of this on the global economic woes following the pandemic, he argues that the root cause is more fundamental and thus permanent:
In his 2014 book, The Revolt of the Public, the former CIA analyst Martin Gurri observed that when the digital revolution unleashed a flood of “information flows”—articles, websites, posts, comments—it permanently altered the public’s relationship with elites. For example, in the age of Walter Cronkite, the dominant media technology was broadcast television, where a handful of channels monopolized audience attention. But the internet fragmented those channels into a zillion pieces, making it impossible for any group, no matter how elite, to fully control the flow of information to the public.
Gurri observed that the internet and social media tend to empower populists, fuel conspiracism, erode institutional trust, and engender a kind of nihilistic negativity among the public that makes governing with a mandate of legitimacy much harder. Under this interpretation, elites aren’t failing more than they used to; it’s that the impression of elite failure is rising. News headlines are relentlessly biased toward negativity, which can make it challenging for some incumbents to prove that the “real world” is better off than the news-media simulacrum of it. If Gurri is correct, then an internet-connected world is one where all power carries a trust tax, and incumbents are reliably punished at the polls for their power.
This, incidentally, after decades in which incumbency was seen as a huge advantage, especially in American politics.
Not anymore. Now exasperation with the ruling class is the iron law of electoral politics. According to Gallup, it’s now been three years since at least 30 percent of Americans said they were satisfied with “the way things are going in the U.S.” This is the longest stretch of dissatisfaction since Gallup started asking the question, in 1979. NBC analysts, who conduct a similar survey, recently said that they “have never before seen this level of sustained pessimism in the 30-year-plus history of the poll.”
Chronic dissatisfaction has bred chronic turnover in the past 25 years. The U.S. has held 12 national elections since 2000, including midterms. Ten of those 12 federal elections resulted in a change of party in the White House, the Senate, or the House, meaning just about every election was a de facto change election. In this environment, incumbency advantage seems like a less and less useful concept for understanding electoral politics. A better one might be an extreme version of the theory of “thermostatic public opinion”—the idea that elected representatives often overshoot their mandate, which inspires voters to change the dial from left to right and back again.
While I don’t dispute the overall trend, there’s obviously a rather huge caveat with regard to Presidential elections: in both 2000 and 2016, the out party won the White House despite losing the popular vote. Indeed, the Democratic Party has won the popular vote in every election save one going back to 1992, with the exception being 2004, when an incumbent who had lost the popular vote but won anyway was re-elected. Thus, the only in-party to lose the popular vote was 2020, when the Republican incumbent who got their despite losing by 3 million votes was defeated by 7 million votes.
Anywho . . .
This brings us to Harris, whose sudden entry into the 2024 election scrambles the concept of incumbency advantage. Fresh face or incumbent? She is the former, and also the latter, and perhaps both, and sometimes neither, all at once. Her relationship to Joe Biden exists in a quantum superposition of political convenience. When it is useful to claim credit for something that happened under the Biden administration, one hears the inclusive “we.” Where she intends to chart a new path, I is the appropriate pronoun.
Harris’s quantum incumbency has lifted the Democrats’ odds of winning an election, in part because voters seem to consider her a free agent, if not quite a change agent. That is, voters don’t seem to hold her responsible for their least favorite memories of the Biden White House. Whereas Biden’s economic record polled horrendously, Harris is “more trusted than Donald Trump on the US economy,” according to polling by the Financial Times. She seems to have consolidated Biden’s support among Democrats while coconut-pilling enough undecideds to squeeze out a small advantage in the election.
This is a remarkable feat. The only sitting Vice Presidents to run for President in my memory were George H.W. Bush in 1988 and Al Gore in 2000. Bush explicitly ran as a third Reagan term, while promising a “kinder, gentler” version. Gore tried to take credit for the good parts of Clinton’s presidency while distancing himself from the icky parts. But both had the advantage of long primary campaigns to establish a distinct persona. Harris had to do it in an instant and has succeeded brilliantly.
Although these sorts of last-minute leadership switcheroos are incredibly rare in American politics, they appear to have worked in other countries. In June 2019, British Prime Minister Theresa May resigned, and London’s loquacious former mayor Boris Johnson was named the leader of the Conservative Party. Almost instantly, election polls showed conservative support skyrocketing. Before the swap, Conservatives were receiving about 25 percent support in voter surveys. In the October general election, their party won 43 percent of the vote.
The U.S. presidential race is still extremely close and fluid. But on the off chance that Harris wins in November, we may look back at this election as a watershed moment in our understanding of how the public assigns blame and credit to its rulers. By bombing the June debate, Biden may have accidentally created an antidote to the disease of the incumbent: same horse, different rider.
It certainly seems to be working.
It’s mostly irrational, in that, to the extent the sitting administration is to blame for high prices, Harris deserves the blame. Not only has every policy since Day 1 been branded “Biden-Harris,” but her instincts on things like the two massive spending bills are to Biden’s left. (Although, ironically, they may well not have passed if she had been President.) But, of course, blaming Biden for a global phenomenon—let alone one where the United States is faring better than just about any other major economy—was irrational to begin with.
So, why is Harris being treated as a change agent despite being an incumbent?
Mostly, I think, because 2024 was seen as a bad sequel to 2020, with many Americans “double haters” who wanted neither of them. Harris is a fresh choice.
She’s not just a new face but a new vibe. Whatever his functioning behind the scenes, Biden is frequently halting and confused in his public appearances. And while Trump was frequently vicious and rambling even in 2016, he’s lost most of what made him “fun” for folks looking to poke a stick in the eye of the Establishment. Harris is fun and “memeable.”
I think age has something to do with it. Twenty years difference between Trump and Harris. People want a generational change not just a ideological one.
I voted for Biden in 2020, not because I was thrilled with him but he was not Trump. After Obama, I preferred someone who was younger. I didn’t think we should go back to someone with a earlier Weltanschauung. I think that is also makes Harris attractive whether people realize it or not.
The “happy with the direction” question allows no nuance, and thus is more noise than matter. A voter could be happy with the president and his or her policies, and disgusted with an obstructionist Congress (or Supreme Court) and accordingly say no to whether they are happy with the direction of the country. So that’s more fodder for pollsters and political scientists than a true barometer of the populace’s mood.
@Charley in Cleveland:
I think that’s right although, ironically, both Trump and Harris are technically Boomers. It’s just that Trump (like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush) was born in the first year of that “Generation” and Harris was born in the last. Indeed, while Harris is just 13 months older than me, we’re in different “Generations.”
What. If.
*Donald Trump suffers as much from his earlier incumbency. Or maybe more.
*There were better ways to analyze a situation than to coin a pundit-phrase and slap that on it.
I guess we’ll never find out.
@James Joyner:
What. If.
How a person projects themself means more than another pundit-phrase, and Harris’s and Walz’s joy appeal more than Trump’s self-pity and whining?
Yes, age. But also, she’s easily different. Biden’s male, she’s female. Biden’s white, she’s Black. He’s older, she’s younger.
The contrasts are obvious and readily apparent. This is not replacing one standard political action figure doll with another standard political action figure doll.
Trump’s continuing whine of “UNFAIR!!!” and his continuous ranting is starting to remind everyone of Crazy Uncle Bob who gets invited to Thanksgiving dinner and who everyone desperately hopes they don’t have to talk to.
I’m happy to see Tim Walz has driven James Comer quite literally insane. 20 years ago, the wild conspiracy theory Comer just ran on Fox News would have earned him an involuntary 72-hour hold on a locked psych ward.
Comer wants to spend federal tax dollars to investigate his own personal theory that Chyyyyna spent time and money to Develop A Sleeper Agent who was a random teacher earning under $20k/yr teaching English while being in China over 30 years ago. Tim Walz wasn’t a politician, Tim Walz wasn’t anything close to politically connected.. nope, he was just a dude. And China was run by entirely different people. But hey, when Republicans are all up in their feelings, they need to be coddled, right? Seriously, this bat-S insanity would have ended every political career as I was growing up.
Also, where has Marjorie Taylor Greene been the last 2 weeks? Someone send out a wellness check.
Harris got lucky. In a hypothetical primary against Biden, a younger, more liberal challenger would have been given an impossible task: prove to voters who do support you that these other voters will fall in line and not rebel, even though you are right. For as long as I’ve lived, the Democrats have hypnotized themselves with the type of empty cynicism.
For example, what has abortion being ‘safe, legal, and rare’ ever meant other than women shouldn’t take openly about the one legal abortion they had in their lives? In real life, very few normal Democrats believe it’s good to be repressed. But ‘safe, legal, and rare’ became a political mantra for no other reason than the cynical belief in the power of the dumbest misogyny.
As I said, she got lucky. Unravelling decades of the type of ideological logic which led to not only supporting the Iraq War but then rewarding the people who got it wrong is very hard to do if the people who rewarded this scheme are the ones in charge.
Because Biden-Trump was the same tired death match, that was the status quo, the figurative incumbency. Harris-Trump is the step beyond that same tired death match. The best Biden could offer was surviving Trump; Harris can put Trump in the rear view mirror.
I think we’re making it too hard. Michelle Obama defined the change we want: no more dread. Harris is being branded as the cheerful warrior. Walz is everyone’s coach who will get us over the goal line. American carnage will be a thing of the past.
@Gavin:
Maybe she’s hiding from the Gazpacho.
I think pointing to the internet and social media is the right direction. Not mentioned is that these channels have enabled big-money influence operations as well as grassroots populism. Sometimes those influence ops are tailored to look like grassroots populism.
This is not speculation, or a conspiracy theory, there are congressional reports on how the Russians did it in 2016. They didn’t stop doing it, though they may have changed tactics. They likely aren’t the only ones, either.
Well, it was the Biden-Harris administration. More on point is that it was touted as the Biden-Harris 2024 primary run. Otherwise, she has no legal right to use funds donated to Biden for President in 2024.
But more importantly, Biden and Harris spoke of Harris being his final advisor. And Harris cast the deciding vote to send forth swarms of IRS officers to harass tip-earners and eat out their substance.
And Harris was big on the massive trillion dollar spending bills without any plan to pay down the debt it caused which is the cause of the inflation. Government debt increases are “printing money”
@JKB: Those big spending bills did work we needed, and saved us from a massive recession. I regret nothing.
Also, concerns about the debt from Republicans who advance unfunded tax cuts are rich. Kind of like all those years of whining about originalism and textualism and “activist judges” from the same people who put this court in place. Yikes.
@JKB: After Reagan and HWand Shrub and Trump, Republicans have no ground whatsoever from which to criticize anyone about lacking concern about government debt. Not. Ever. Again.
So Harris isn’t being blamed for the economy that is actually very good*. That seems very postmodern. As does some confusion as to who’s an incumbent.
* A couple days ago Kevin Drum did a post Grocery inflation is over. He has a chart and examples showing grocery prices stable for the last 18 months. Out of curiosity I checked gas. Gas Buddy had a handy chart of the average price of regular in the US over the last 18 months. It showed regular averaging $3.27 that day. 18 months ago it was … $3.27.
@just nutha: I recently read Alan Blinder’s A Monetary and Fiscal History of the United States. He’s pretty explicit that it’s a tale of external events, Arab oil embargoes or COVID, and three cycles of GOP tax cuts screwing up the debt and Dems having to manage a recovery. Blinder’s a Dem, but the narrative is public knowledge and clear.
I think a lot of it is the “double haters” who weren’t happy about either choice but I also think that so far the decision to run as people who love the country, have a sense of humor and seem like normal people is paying off. At least in the convention they are actually paying attention to issues that matter to most people like housing. The more niche issues that Dems have championed are important but they have let themselves be painted as the party that only worries about those issues.
Steve
@Cheryl Rofer: I’m pretty sure this is what I’ve been saying.
@gVOR10:
I’m convinced by now that a disturbingly large number of people plain don’t understand inflation.
To begin with, it’s a cumulative phenomenon. What I’m seeing is a lot of people who think, “Ok, prices went up with inflation. But now inflation’s over and the prices should go back down.”
That’s not how it works. That is prices keep increasing and/or product sizes keep shrinking, without end. and having increased and/or shrunk, they stay that way or further increase/shrink slower. The prices won’t come down and sizes will rarely go up*. Something that cost $5 and held 100 gr., now costs $6 and hold 90 gr. It’s likely to stay that way.
Some things are more volatile, and more susceptible to supply and demand pressures, and these may go down. Oil, for instance, also produce sometimes. But most things will stay at the higher price.
*Now and then after severe size reductions, companies will add a larger size, at a higher price, because the latest smaller size is too small for some people. For instance, Kellogg’s corn flakes went from 660 to 450 gr. over the past decade. the latter is too small for a regular family. So now they came out with a new 540 gr. size.
Republicans have since Reagan harrumphed about Unleashing The Private Sector. And of course when they finally got exactly what they wanted —- The Private Sector gave us precisely nothing but price inflation, good and hard.
And of course because they’re shameless hacks, Republicans then complained about that — right up until Harris proposed to do something about it. Harris proposed to end price-gouging, and Republicans immediately flipped to whining about Big Government Intervention.
It’s almost like Republicans believe in nothing and have no ideas.
@James Joyner: For what it’s worth, admittedly not much, I can see where her disconnect comes into play. Still, when you go off on the sort of jag you’ve been on the past day or three, I remind myself that in the dark night of your soul, you’re still Republican and conservative. An amazing R and c, granted, given that you’ve been able to find the ability to do what others of us can’t–vote for a Democrat for President. Multiple times.
But the Republican in you still shows through sometimes. The critics should cut you more slack. (And it would help them sound a little less petulant and shrill as a bonus.)
@Kathy: Indeed. The practice of returning to a near previous size package–at a corresponding increase in price is pretty common as shrinkflation becomes impractical.
I think that having to do it instantly works to her advantage. Gore was a very well known quantity, who had been laying the groundwork for years, and that gave people years to prepare. Harris gets the advantage of surprise where everyone is wondering how she differs from an administration that she clearly mostly supports, and all they really have is what she says right now.
Despite Trump saying for years that Biden was old and senile and going to hand things over to KAAHM-a-la, he was just using the prospect of a scary Black lady to scare his base rather than preparing for the possibility. Republicans didn’t really need to define her as anything other than just Black, and the only message they cared about was making Biden (BYYE-den) look weak.
Anyway, that just goes to show that you should be careful what you cynically claim with no evidence in order to motivate the racists in your life, because sometimes life appears to have a sense of humor.
@JKB:
The economy doesn’t respond that quickly to macroeconomic forces. To the extent that government debt is the cause of inflation, it would be the Trump tax cuts increasing the money supply.
This doesn’t explain the inflation everywhere else, granted, but America is an economic superpower or something.
(Or corporations had been unable to raise prices in the years before the pandemic because of competition and price sensitive consumers, and then discovered that the supply chain shortages caused by the pandemic forced prices higher (if you have no toilet paper, you will pay a lot for the last package) and then didn’t lower them to their original level and these price increases have been working their way through the system. But I hear Covid was a hoax, so that can’t be it)
@Kathy: One positive about shrinkflation that people never mention is that now when someone eats an entire pint of ice cream out of the container while sitting in front of the TV that is is stuck on the Netflix “are you still watching?” screen because they don’t have the motivation to decide whether they are still watching and click a button and so are just sitting in silence illuminated by the glow of the TV — they’re really only getting 14oz rather than 16oz, so it is lowering their intake of fat and sugar at that meal by an eighth.
Shrinkflation is helping people make better food choices, and I think that will have noticeable long term health benefits.
@JKB:
You can make an argument that Democrats are the “Tax and Spend” party, and it will have some legitimacy.
As opposed to the “Spend, Spend and Go Broke” Republicans…
@JKB:..Otherwise, she has no legal right to use funds donated to Biden for President in 2024.
This is your opinion based on ???
This page from the Federal Election Commission web site lists Harris as a Presidential candidate. No mention of President Biden. It states “The candidate list displays each candidate’s overall receipts, including contributions from the candidate, individuals and other political committees as well as transfers from the candidate’s prior federal campaigns.”
I am not an expert on what this means however I read it to say that the Biden/Harris campaign that ended when President Biden withdrew his candidacy was a prior federal campaign of Vice-President Kamala Harris.
I am open to any rebuttal of this interpretation that is supported by good evidence.
@Mister Bluster: JKB isn’t actually gonna bring receipts. He’s still gonna be waiting for his marching orders in the morning.
“Just Kidding Because I don’t know what I am talking about.”
James: “So, why is Harris being treated as a change agent despite being an incumbent?”
Because the Clinton-level propaganda campaign by the media ignored her.