Wake up with the Washington Examiner: The future of DEI, Democrats’ delight, and money problems for Harris – Washington Examiner

Max ThornberryJuly 24, 2024

N the campaign transferred money‍ to the Democratic National Committee to finance the general⁤ election ‌and its eventual candidate opposed by‍ Republicans, assuming that ‌it would ultimately be her.”

Questions surrounding campaign finance and where candidates get⁢ their ⁣money are ‍not new, but they are particularly⁤ relevant in this election cycle ‍as ‌both the Biden and Harris campaigns face scrutiny over⁤ their financial ⁢ties to corporations and lobbyists. ⁣As ‍the race heats up, these issues will likely continue to be a focal point for critics and voters ‌alike.

Stay tuned ‌to ⁤ The ‌Washington ⁣Examiner for the latest updates on the 2020⁣ election and all things politics.

Wake up with the Washington Examiner: The future of DEI, Democrats’ delight, and money problems for Harris

Is DEI about to die?

Simmering in the background of this political moment and starting to boil over at various points in the last two weeks, the culture war question about diversity, equity, and inclusion has continued to rage. The hot-button topic was all the rage when the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action rules in admissions procedures for public universities. And it roared back to life when former President Donald Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, with many of his biggest boosters asking whether the women guarding him were physically up to the task.

Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle bore the brunt of DEI complaints for her agency before resigning on Tuesday. Cheatle was blasted for comments she made when she was appointed that diversity was going to be at the top of her mind when recruiting new agents.

Vice President Kamala Harris is undergoing a similar DEI test now that President Joe Biden has abdicated his reelection campaign in favor of his No. 2. Harris appeared to get her vice presidential appointment as a result of Biden making promises to recruit a woman, and then promising to bring on a black woman, to his campaign in 2020. Biden-Harris boosters say there wouldn’t be any question about another president handing the reins to his vice president and that Harris is suffering from a uniquely sexist and racist brand of scrutiny.

But as DEI bubbles back up into the public consciousness, Education Reporter Breccan Thies wrote that it is being pressed down in institutions, even if it isn’t being expelled.

“After comprehensive buy-in across the institutional powers of corporations, government, and higher education, diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology has more recently left a negative impression on many people who increasingly see the movement as anti-meritocratic and even racist or sexist,” Breccan wrote.

Once in vogue, full-throated praise and defense of DEI policies is waning, Charles Lipson, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, told Breccan.

“We’re seeing a tectonic shift in public attitudes,” Lipson said. “I think that public attitudes for a long time were tolerant of DEI initiatives on the grounds that they were making up for historical inequities, but the public has also seen that we are now six decades past the Civil Rights Act and that this kind of compensation has to have a sunset.”

Those public attitudes have tended to push DEI efforts underground more often than out of institutions completely. Consumer pressure has influenced major companies such as Deere & Company, the maker of John Deere tractors, Tractor Supply, Zoom, Snap, Tesla, DoorDash, Lyft, Home Depot, and Wayfair to make alterations to their DEI departments, while companies like Microsoft have opted to cut “equity” while they continue apace with “D&I” initiatives, Breccan wrote.

Click here to read more about the future of DEI.

Good karma with Kamala

Democrats are waking up. After months of slogging through a 2020 retread, Harris taking over the top of the ticket has juiced donor and volunteer efforts and given weary Democrats a new lease on political life.

Biden’s decision to hand control of the party’s future to Harris has given the party a bounce where it was resigned to defeat. The electoral map was looking grim, not only for Biden but for down-ballot candidates in fierce fights that will determine control of the House and Senate next year. White House Reporter Naomi Lim wrote for us this morning that the historic shake-up has given Democrats a confidence boost that could result in shattering the low expectations some were beginning to have for 2024.

“Under President Joe Biden, battleground states Arizona and Georgia were at risk of becoming out of reach due to mounting concerns over his age despite him flipping them for the first time in decades only four years ago,” Naomi wrote. “But with Harris replacing him at the top of the ticket, Democrats are arguing those states, in addition to a third, Nevada, are back in play.”

Running with Harris will bring a new set of complications and complements to Democratic plans. Harris, who ran to the left of Biden in 2019, will appeal to different segments of the party. Her position as the first black, female, South Asian vice president, who also happens to be nearly two decades younger than her boss, also changes the demographics she can appeal to.

“Harris’s early polling among white voters, particularly those without a college degree, is poised to make sure that this November’s election remains a close contest, while Rust Belt states Biden had found success in, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, could be harder for her to win,” Naomi wrote.

Those are key states to secure if Harris wants to take up residence in the White House. However, Harris is expected to have far more appeal for the young, female, and minority voters in the Rust Belt states that have been leaning Democratic and only appeared to wobble as questions blared about Biden’s fitness to serve.

There is also excitement about revamped leadership in the Sun Belt. Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada round out the most important states that appear to be up for grabs in November, and new blood means Trump and Republicans will have to divert even more resources to win there.

Biden won every single one of those six states in 2020.

Click here to read more about the Democrats’ newfound confidence.

More money, more problems

Harris used her first campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to tear into Trump, specifically criticizing his reliance on lobbyists and corporations to bankroll his campaign. She said he relies on support from billionaires and big corporations and accused him of “trading access in exchange for campaign contributions.”

The barbs came as she touted her own “people-powered” campaign that received thousands of donors contributing to her $100 million haul in the hours after Biden endorsed her and she announced she was running to replace him.

However, despite her promise the last time she ran for president not to accept donations from Big Money interests, her record isn’t squeaky clean, Investigative Reporter Gabe Kaminsky wrote.

“Harris, through her then-presidential campaign and other committees, accepted donations during the 2020 race from both lobbyists and PACs affiliated with corporations. Now, as Harris assumes control over the tens of millions of dollars in Biden’s war chest following his decision not to run for reelection, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is being boosted once more by corporate-funded PACs and K Street, records show,” Gabe wrote.

It’s not easy to stay away from corporate money. All of a politician’s best efforts to keep their pots of cash separate are complicated because “money has so many avenues to flow into elections now,” Craig Holman, an ethics lobbyist for the progressive Public Citizen think tank, told Gabe.

“I wish everybody would take the pledge not to take corporate and lobbyist money. But it’s going to get in elections no matter what,” added Holman, who said the Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 Citizens United v. FEC ruling “opened up the floodgates” for special interests to fuel campaigns.

And questions about where she got her cash aren’t limited to what she hauled in last time out. There are also possible legal challenges that could hold up the roughly $90 million she and Biden raised previously that was transferred to her as the new nominee.

Supreme Court Reporter Kaelan Deese wrote this morning for us that an FEC complaint could derail one of the strongest cases Harris had for being the consensus pick to replace Biden.

“One of the top questions over whether Harris can smoothly slide into what was once Biden’s Democratic nomination is whether her campaign can easily inherit the $91.5 million leftover from what was the Biden campaign,” Kaelan wrote. “The uncertainty was underscored on Tuesday when former President Donald Trump’s campaign filed a complaint to the Federal Election Commission against Biden and Harris, accusing them of violating campaign finance laws by sending the president’s funds over to the vice president.”

Republicans might back off their designs on legal challenges to force states to keep Biden on their ballots in favor of cutting Harris’s purse strings.

FEC Chairman Sean Cooksey, a Trump appointee, raised questions about whether the Biden war chest transfer to Harris was above board in a series of posts online.

“If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated …, or reattributed …, as appropriate,” Cooksey posted to X, citing Section 110.1(b)(3) of federal campaign finance regulations.

Click here to read more about Harris’s broken promises and the new financial challenges she will have to face.