Why VP Harris is seen as critical to Biden's reelection campaign

Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks before a closed roundtable with voting rights activists in Atlanta, Ga on Tuesday, January 9, 2024 (Matthew Pearson/WABE)

Vice President Kamala Harris is on a mission to court a distinct part of the Democratic base.

“She’s really been mobilizing a lot of the voters that we need … like young people, women, voters of color,” said Sheila Nix, Harris’s chief of staff for the 2024 reelection campaign.

These groups were all critical to Biden’s victory in 2020, but polls suggest his support among young voters and voters of color is slipping. Some Democrats see Harris, a 59-year-old Black and Asian woman, as being better able to motivate these key blocs by leaning into her personal experience and perspective than the 81-year-old President Biden.