As Harris watched Biden’s face-plant, she and her team realized her response would be even more closely scrutinized, according to three aides granted anonymity to describe private discussions — and she quickly made clear to her staff that they shouldn’t try to sugarcoat how badly her running mate had performed.
Harris told her advisers her role was simple, the aides said: project confidence as quickly and clearly as possible as a leader of the party, while preserving credibility by recognizing how weak the debate had been.
“She wanted to have an acknowledgment of what everybody was seeing,” one senior Harris aide said.
Her biggest asset, in any case, isn’t a marketing machine — it’s political reality. Were Biden to leave the presidential race, hopping over Harris to any other potential candidate would present significant practical challenges. Only Harris, for instance, would have access to the coffers of the campaign she’s already a part of. Any other candidate would be faced with the tall task of building an infrastructure in a matter of months.
