Kamala Harris is partly benefiting from the comparison against what came before
The Harris transformation |
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2024 Democratic Presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris walks up to the podium at an event in Indianapolis, Indiana on Wednesday. |
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Kamala Harris' political skills have long been questioned and she's been a less powerful vice president than her recent predecessors. But few politicians have undergone such a swift reputation transformation as Harris has in the last 48 hours – after she consolidated support in the Democratic Party with lightning speed and unleashed a fundraising torrent. Harris is partly benefiting from the comparison against what came before – an aged, stumbling President Joe Biden who folded his reelection campaign in her favor. Democrats were desperate for anyone who could avert what was looking like a certain electoral defeat to former President Donald Trump in November. Now Harris faces a monumental task – as a presumptive nominee who is suddenly at the top of the ticket a month before the Democratic convention and just over three months before the election – and who is charged with saving the White House, her party's control of the Senate and its hopes of winning back the House. And there's the small matter of beating Trump – the most feral political campaigner in modern times. Democrats believe that Harris, 59, could repair frayed sectors of the Democratic coalition and boost enthusiasm among young voters, Hispanic voters and Black voters. The biggest liability of Biden's ticket – the president's age – has now been removed and Democrats can play the same card back at 78-year-old Trump. But, as the president's number two, she's hardly immune from voter anger over high prices, concern about White House immigration policy and fears -- fanned by Trump -- that the US is heading for World War III. In racing to anoint Harris as the presumptive presidential nominee, Democrats are going all in on a candidate who has not yet demonstrated she can do better than Biden. If in the coming days or weeks, Harris stumbles, Democrats will risk being seen as a party that imposed on the country another 2024 candidate who is not up to the job. |
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Demonstrators march on Capitol Hill to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress on Wednesday. |
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Evictions surging in the US Sunbelt |
A toxic mix of surging rental rates and vanishing support for renters is catapulting evictions above pre-pandemic levels in some major cities, reports CNN's Matt Egan. While cities like New York City and Philadelphia have enacted protections for renters, evictions have increased most significantly in Sun Belt cities where housing affordability has worsened and where renters often have fewer protections. Tenant eviction filings are well above the pre-Covid average in Gainesville, Florida (+46%); Las Vegas (+43%); Houston (+42%); Phoenix (+35%); Nashville, Tennessee (+31%); and Fort Worth, Texas (+25%), according to records tracked by the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. Other cities, including Minneapolis (+44%) and Columbus, Ohio (+37%), are also experiencing higher levels of evictions than before the pandemic.
Three-quarters of the 34 cities tracked by the Eviction Lab saw evictions increase between 2022 and 2023. More than half are above pre-pandemic levels. The vast majority of evictions are for issues related to nonpayment of rent, according to the Eviction Lab. Experts blame a combination of higher rent, the expiration of Covid-era protections and policies that make it easier for landlords to evict tenants in some cities and states. "There has been a real erosion of housing affordability — especially at the low end. Affordable housing has really disappeared," said Chris Salviati, senior housing economist at rental platform Apartment List. Across the country, rent is 21% more expensive nationally since March 2020, according to Apartment List.
And while the federal government provided rental assistance and a moratorium on evictions during the pandemic, that has now lapsed, leaving many Americans struggling to make ends meet after years of high inflation. Read the full story here. |
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