What Kamala Harris’ latest campaign trip was really about

COLUMBIA, S.C. —  Despite all the media attention directed at the 2024 presidential primaries, we know how they are likely to end: Unless something dramatic happens, former President Trump will be the nominee for the GOP, President Biden will represent the Democratic Party and the duo will face off in a November rematch of the 2020 election.

And so Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit this week to Columbia, S. C., was much less about ensuring her ticket wins the Democratic primary here next month and more of a test of whether she can get Black voters to turn out in the general election.

Hello, my name is Erin B. Logan. I cover national politics for the L.A. Times. Today, we are going to discuss how the Biden-Harris campaign is courting Black voters.

A warning to voters

After record turnout for the 2020 presidential election, Republicans enacted new voter restrictions in dozens of states. The measures concerned voting rights advocates and experts and angered Democrats, who blasted the GOP for trying to use voter suppression to win elections.

On Monday, Harris reminded Black voters these threats have not subsided and warned that the GOP would continue to attempt to curb their civil rights. Speaking to more than 200 people on the steps of the South Carolina State Capitol, Harris used her bully pulpit to rev up the crowd.

“Consider in states across our nation, extremists attack the sacred freedom to vote,” Harris said during the speech at a South Carolina NAACP event honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the slain civil rights icon. “They pass laws to ban drop boxes, limit early voting and restrict absentee ballots.

“They even try to erase, overlook and rewrite the ugly parts of our past,” she said. “For example, the Civil War, which must I really have to say was about slavery,” she added, alluding to former South Carolina Gov. (and current GOP presidential candidate) Nikki Haley’s failure to mention slavery as a cause of the conflict.

Harris added: “With hope and optimism, we will fight. And when we fight, we win.”

The latest from the campaign trail

—New polling suggests that Republicans vying for the presidential nomination face the equivalent of a brick wall on Super Tuesday, in the form of former President Trump, Times writer Laura J. Nelson reported.

—Despite the Iowa caucuses taking place 1,700 miles from California — and the temperature being much colder — the Golden State, its elected leaders and its policies were a constant target in the lead-up to the first presidential nominating contest in the nation Monday, Times writer Seema Mehta reported.

—With a frigid and anticlimactic Iowa caucus night behind them, the Republican presidential field moved Tuesday to New Hampshire, where Nikki Haley has her best — and perhaps only — chance to prove that Trump can still be beaten in a GOP primary, Times writer David Lauter reported.

The view from Washington

—The Supreme Court will take up the case of a Los Angeles man who was denied a visa, in part, because of his tattoos, Times writer Andrea Castillo reported. The outcome of the case could have ripple effects for immigrants like him, who rarely win challenges to the government’s visa denials.

—Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III was released from the hospital Monday, after spending two weeks there to treat complications from surgery for prostate cancer he kept secret from senior Biden administration leaders and staff for weeks, the Associated Press reported.

The view from California

—Several tech leaders argue San Francisco and the Bay Area more broadly remain a thriving nerve center of talent, institutional knowledge and bountiful venture capital, Times writer Hannah Wiley reported. They say emerging tech hubs — think Nashville, Miami, Austin — can’t really compare.

—Assemblymember Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz) has divested from several oil and chemical companies after a Times investigation shed light on surprising stocks owned by the outspoken environmentalist who represents a progressive coastal region in the state Capitol, Times writer Mackenzie Mays reported.

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