Kamala Harris Newly Balances a Ticket that Looks Like America
Kamala Harris’s selection as vice-president sets a new standard for what it means for a political party to balance its ticket. Ticket balancing for the parties used to be largely geographic or ideological in nature. Now for the Democrats it has come to mean greater demographic balance — namely, selecting a ticket that looks more closely like America.
Mind you, Kamala Harris is an outstanding choice as an individual who could step into the job as president on a moment’s notice. Temperamentally she is smart, level-headed, and determined. She has had accomplished careers in state government and the Senate. During the primaries she set forth bold and credible proposals on the economy, health care, racial justice, and climate change — all priorities for Joe Biden.
This makes her an ideal choice to give the Democrats response to the Trump-Pence team. Vice-presidents are meant to increase the appeal of a ticket by adding something new to it. Harris will bring a seriousness of purpose to priorities such as social equity and environmental justice to which the Republicans can’t pretend. To understand fully what this Biden and the Democrats symbolizes, it’s worth looking at how the parties have evolved over time on the issue of what is meant by ticket balancing.
A Short History of Ticket Balancing
To track this evolution, I have broken down recent history into two political periods: the 10 presidential elections in the early post-war period (1944–1980); and the 10 presidential elections in the late post-war period (1984–2020). The national parties have been very closely competitive during these 20 elections. In fact, if the Democrats win this year, then the two parties would have both won five races for the White House in each of these periods. (See chart below.)
Here are some results:
- In the ten elections from 1944–1980, ticket balancing was mostly devoid of demographic diversity. One hundred percent of the ticket slots of the two major parties went to white men. Religious diversity was lacking too — 37 out of the 40 available slots went to Protestants. The only exceptions were the Democratic nominees of John Kennedy for president in 1960 and Ed Muskie and Sargent Shriver for vice-president in 1968 and 1972 respectively.
- The two parties focused instead on geographic balance in this period, which often also helped bridge ideological differences in the party. For the Democrats this resulted in the persistent addition of southerners to the ticket (70% of the time) usually as vice-president, whereas the Republicans preferred to include at least one candidate from either New York or California (90% of the tickets) or both. This specific type of geographic balance characterized four of the five Democratic victories during this period, and all five of the GOP wins.
- All this began to change for the Democrats in 1984 when Walter Mondale selected Geraldine Ferraro, a Catholic woman, as his running mate. Slowly at first but then more quickly in late post-war period, the Democrats placed three different women on campaign tickets — one as president and two as vice-president — and nominated a person of color twice for president and another as vice-president. Non-protestant candidates have become commonplace, being part of eight of the 10 tickets, including a Greek Orthodox and a Jewish nominee. The only two all-white, male, and Protestant tickets were Bill-Clinton and Al Gore in 1992 and 1996.
- Meanwhile the Republicans remained strangely frozen in time. (Indeed, when they speak of making America great again, the 1950s is the time to which they want to return.) Yes, one year they nominated a Mormon for president and a Catholic for vice-president (both white males), and another time a white woman for vice-president. But still, during this period none of their slots have gone to a person of color, 95% have gone to men, and all but two have gone once again to Protestants.
Race, Republicans and the Southern Strategy
It’s no coincidence that the divergent of the two parties on ticket balancing corresponds to a capturing of the south by the Republicans. As the Democrats proceeded to diversify their tickets in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan was putting the finishing touches on the GOP southern strategy.
Fittingly, the Bush Texas dynasty would now appear on six presidential tickets from 1980–2004. But the start of the southern strategy can be traced back to Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon in the 1960s as a ploy to pry the solid south away from the Democrats by appealing to race, anti-communism, and conservative religious values — issues generally resonant with southern whites.
Indeed, in the early post-war period the Democrats had been very dependent upon the south for their majorities in Congress and control of the White House. Democrats would have lost their White House bids in three of their five victories (1948, 1960 and 1976) without their share of southern electoral votes. By the same token, southern states delivered Nixon his margin of victory (with the help of George Wallace’s campaign) against the Democratic party’s all-northern ticket in 1968. This followed the passage of historic civil rights legislation under Lyndon Johnson.
Nevertheless, casting off the shackles of the conservative ideology of the south has been liberating for the Democratic party and has helped broaden its appeal in the northeast and the west. The historic election of Barack Obama as president was the culmination of these regional realignments and proof of the value of political diversification. Given the size of Hillary Clinton’s popular vote, it should have been further capped by the election of the first woman president but for the improbably small margins of victory for Trump in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Centrists in the Democratic party have warned that it took Bill Clinton and Al Gore, two New Democrat southerners, to break the conservative Reagan-Bush grip on the White House. They argue further that if Gore or Kerry had just won the right southern state, they would have been elected president too. These are valid cautionary tales for the party about moving too far to the left politically.
However, the U.S. itself has changed a lot between Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. Carter needed his southern electoral votes to win the election in 1976, but Bill Clinton and Obama did not. And outside the south a Gore win in New Hampshire or a Kerry in Ohio would have dealt them presidential victories as well.
I’m not saying the Democrats should forget about the south. As a son of the south, born and raised in North Carolina and living in Virginia, I’m saying just the opposite. The Democrats should help change the south; just not let the old south change them. This means ending systemic racism and sexism and extending economic opportunity to all. It involves stopping voter suppression and the corrupting influence of money in politics. They should help make this happen not only in the south but everywhere. But they should not depend politically upon an unrepentant south to do it.
If the Obama presidency of hope was the culmination of the Democrat’s steady diversification, then Donald Trump’s overt racism is the predicable outcome of decades of the GOP playing to segregationists. The Biden-Harris ticket now has become a critical test case about whether the country wants to move forward to a more diverse future or jump back in time. And Kamala Harris is just the candidate to make the case for the majority of Americans ready to move ahead.
