Five questions facing Kamala Harris as her ‘honeymoon period’ ends

Vice President Harris has spurred huge excitement among Democrats who had grown deeply gloomy about their chances in November’s election with President Biden at the top of the ticket.

Team Harris raised $200 million within a week of Biden announcing he would stand aside, according to her campaign. More than 170,000 new volunteers have reportedly signed up.

Opinion polls also show Harris narrowing the gap former President Trump had been enjoying over Biden.

But Trump retains a lead in most surveys and virtually everyone, including the most fervent Harris loyalists, knows her honeymoon period will end soon enough.

“We are the underdogs in this race,” Harris said at a weekend fundraiser in Massachusetts.

Here are five big questions for Harris and her campaign.

Will she make a strong VP choice?

This is the biggest decision looming over Harris.

It could come any time. During an interview Monday on “CBS Mornings,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said she expected Harris to decide in “the next six, seven days.” Whitmer strongly implied she would not be Harris’s running mate.

The front-runners for the position are Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D). Other figures such as Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg could have a shot.

It’s easy to make an argument for any of the top three: Kelly because of his perceived capacity to ease Harris’s vulnerability on migration issues, Shapiro because he is the popular governor of the largest battleground state, and Walz because he has a plain-spoken Midwest appeal.

But running mate choices that look good on paper can easily go wrong. On the GOP side, there is significant unease over Sen. JD Vance’s (Ohio) rocky start as Trump’s vice presidential pick. The GOP is still haunted by then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s 2008 performance as then-Sen. John McCain’s (Ariz.) running mate.

It’s vital for Harris’s chances that her vice presidential choice doesn’t misfire.

Can she blunt attacks over her previous positions?

The overarching Trump campaign attack on Harris is that she is too liberal for the American public.

There is a genuine vulnerability here, particularly when it comes to Harris’s comments and policy positions as she sought the Democratic nomination in 2020.

At that time, she supported a ban on fracking, had already been a Senate co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, and wanted fundamental reform of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

There is some controversy over exactly where Harris stood on some of these positions. 

For example, when she was asked during this period whether she agreed with calls to abolish ICE she said that it was necessary to “critically reexamine ICE” and added, “we need to probably even think about starting from scratch.”

Team Harris counters that her record as a former prosecutor is a big asset in the battle to define her, helping to cast her as willing to stand up to powerful interests.

She also appears likely to…