Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) predicted that Vice President Harris will be Democrats’ next presidential nominee, suggesting that after President Biden dropped out over the weekend, some members of the party feel pressure to select her due to her race.
“A lot of Democrats feel they have to stick with her because of her ethnic background,” Grothman said of Harris’s chances at the nomination in an interview with Milwaukee’s CBS-58 on Sunday.
Many Democrats have rallied around Harris in the wake of Biden ending his reelection campaign Sunday, including the president himself, and she has quickly become a favorite for the nomination.
Beyond being the sitting vice president, Harris’s position on the current ticket also enables her presidential campaign to easily take over a $91 million war chest from the president, a massive leg up that other potential candidates don’t have.
Harris does not yet face any challengers for the Democratic nomination. If elected in November, she would be the first woman, first Black woman and first person of south Asian descent to be president.
Grothman said that any Democrat, including Harris, will be a tougher challenge for former President Trump to defeat compared to the incumbent.
“I think it will be more difficult to beat somebody who's not Joe Biden,” he said. “It’s going to be a difficult race.”
But he also remarked that Harris isn’t without her weaknesses.
“I know there are some Democrats who don't like her,” he said. “And she has the obvious weaknesses, the border, as well as she hasn't been the most articulate candidate so far.”
The Trump campaign began attacks on Harris before Biden even left the race, hitting her over the Biden administration border policy. Early in the administration, she was tasked with handling the southern border before that role was later specified to tackling the root causes of migration.
A Trump-Harris presidential race is neck-and-neck, according to national polls. Trump leads Harris by 2 percent, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ average, a slight improvement over Biden’s performance against the former president.
