The Short Campaign May Have Been Harris’s Undoing — and Biden’s Fault

By seeking re-election, Biden deprived Harris of months of campaigning that might have helped her.

Good evening. My colleague Adam Nagourney has covered 10 presidential elections — but never one as short as Vice President Kamala Harris’s speedy sprint. Tonight, he tells us why that could have been one of Harris’s biggest problems. And we’ll take a look at just how far the red wave went. — Jess Bidgood

After President Biden stepped aside and Vice President Kamala Harris entered the race in late July, I wrote about Democrats’ hopes that the short time-frame of her presidential campaign — just 15 weeks — would be a good thing. They thought it would allow a relatively inexperienced candidate to ride a burst of enthusiasm past the pitfalls of a long campaign and into the White House.

But now, it looks like that short campaign was one of the key factors behind her decisive loss to former President Donald Trump.

And you can add that to the list of things that Democrats are blaming Biden for during this season of second-guessing and recriminations.

Biden’s decision to run for re-election, while demanding that his party rally behind him, effectively cleared the field. That meant that Harris did not endure the rigors of a competitive primary process that might have sharpened her qualities as a candidate. And it meant that a party that once had reservations about Harris never had the option of watching her compete against other Democrats before settling on its nominee.

Harris displayed formidable skills during her rapid-fire campaign, rousing crowds at rallies and outmaneuvering Trump at their debate. But in smaller, more intimate settings during the general election campaign, she stumbled over the kinds of questions — Example No. 1: how she would be different from Biden — that she would have repeatedly faced during the gantlet of town hall meetings, living room coffees and local interviews that define a primary campaign.