When President Joe Biden announced on July 21 that he was dropping out of the race for the White House and throwing his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris, the news held special resonance in the East Bay.
Harris was born in Oakland on Oct. 20, 1964, of parents who met at a study group at UC Berkeley. She has never stopped acknowledging and celebrating her East Bay roots. In the Aug. 6 Philadelphia rally in which she introduced running partner Tim Walz, she called herself “a daughter of Oakland, California.”
Aimee Allison was at home when she saw the Biden announcement on X. “This is the historic opportunity I have been working for my entire career,” said the founder of Oakland-based She the People, an organization dedicated to advancing women of color in politics. “This is an opportunity for solidarity, a positive vision, hope.”
Allison described the nation as being in the middle of a “significant cultural shift,” in which there “is much more room” for multiracial identities, such as Harris.’ “She is uniquely qualified to lead America’s future,” Allison said. “Her identities are her superpower.”
Dzian Tran and Aashi Jhawer, the 19-year-old co-executive directors of California Voters of Tomorrow, founded in 2019 by then-17-year-old Santiago Mayer, support that idea. “Her candidacy speaks volumes to Gen Z,” Tran said. “[We] are multiracial, too.” She and Jhawer spoke about “a huge upsurge in energy” among their age group when Harris became the candidate. California Voters of Tomorrow has a UC Berkeley chapter.
Harris, they noted, has a history of involvement in and support of causes important to Gen Z, as outlined in the Voters of Tomorrow’s web statement: 21st-century justice, justice for all, government and democracy reform, healthcare, education access and combating the climate crisis. Their organization is also very anti-Project 2025. “This isn’t the future Gen Z asked for,” its website states.
“She will be a champion of Gen Z values,” said Tran, noting Harris’ support of environmental issues, as well as gun regulation, among other policies.
Indivisible, the national “resistance” group formed in the aftermath of the 2016 election, is represented locally by Indivisible East Bay, which also has several sub-groups. One of IEB’s leaders, Nancy Latham, concurred that Harris’s candidacy sparked “a huge vibe shift” among its members. “People are making their way back to mobilization,” she said. Tired members are revitalized, and new volunteers are signing up. “The groups that are ready to absorb the volunteers will put them to work,” Latham said.
Walz’s addition to the ticket resonates well with IEB members, she reported. “He is a great unifier of the broad Democratic coalition: He can appeal to people of all political stripes, and is supported by people as politically diverse as AOC and Sen. Manchin,” she said.
Of course, even in the deep blue East Bay, not everyone supports Harris. The Alameda County Republican Party, headquartered in San Leandro, represents 110,868 registered Republicans, or 11.7% of the county’s population, according to statistics provided by Utkarsh Jain, party treasurer.
Although Republicans expected Harris’ candidacy after Biden’s announcement, Jain said, they showed concern that there was not an “open conversation” about the change in candidates. Harris, in their view, like the party she represents, is “not focused on issues working people care about.”
Jain said, “Climate change and democracy [as issues] don’t appeal to a wide range of voters.” Even in the East Bay, he emphasized, voters care more about “kitchen-table” issues, along with crime, homelessness and immigration.
The local GOP, he said, does focus on these “commonsense” issues. Asked about the media’s reporting on Donald Trump’s statements about Harris’ racial background, he pushed back. “These are issues that are more important to journalists [than voters],” he said. “Do your own research. He is not racist.”
Actions here and beyond the East Bay
All three groups supporting Harris have local activities for her campaign, but are also involved in efforts in California swing districts, as well as other states.
She the People, Allison said, is doing outreach to voters of color in Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, all considered key swing states.
Voters of Tomorrow, “Gen Z for Gen Z,” will work to advance Harris’ campaign through peer-to-peer phone banking and texting, and voter registration drives on college campuses. “We are also actively supporting local candidates,” said Jhawer, who pointed to the possible passage of California AB-2724, which would allow eligible high school students to be registered on campus, as a key goal.
IEB held a rally on Aug. 2 in Oakland’s Preservation Park featuring multiple speakers, including State Sen. Nancy Skinner and Berkeley City Councilmember Igor Tregub. Skinner and others echoed Harris’ proclamation at her recent Atlanta rally, “When we fight, we win.”
But the group is also focusing on keeping the Senate and re-taking the House of Representatives, Latham said. “We’ve adopted [House District] CA-13 and the state of Nevada,” she said. Outreach strategies include phone and text banking, postcarding, recruiting local volunteers and assisting local groups with door-to-door canvassing, while partnering with other IEB groups, such as Indivisible Northern Nevada.
Confronting the challenges
All interviewees supporting Harris acknowledged the challenges facing her campaign, including trying to maintain the momentum of the launch and fending off attacks from her opponents.
“[Her opponents} will engage in racist rhetoric, discrediting her identity,” said Young Voters’ Jhawer.
Jhawer also spoke to the not-uncommon problem of young voters and their parents holding substantially different positions. “My background differs from my immigrant parents,” she said. “The connection is civil discourse. Some issues are polarizing … [the response to] Covid, climate change. Ask people questions, and be an active listener.”
Tran pointed to a history of low turnout among young voters, and said her organization is taking aim at “the barriers to voting” that youth often encounter.
Nationally, Indivisible has created a “Neighbor-to-Neighbor” program, which, while only being mounted in swing states, is supported by IEB. Latham said that N-2-N consists of recruiting people willing to talk to 10 neighbors about voting, with the goal of energizing people of like positions who do not vote regularly.
She the People, said Allison, is partnering with a group of academics called The Kamala Harris Project, who “are looking at ways to defuse the name-calling. You need to give people tools. Negative attacks can trigger trauma, [leading some] to shrink from full participation.”
Allison also spoke frankly about the possibility of opponents refusing to recognize a Harris/Walz victory, and encourages those concerned about it to support Stacey Abrams’ organization Fair Fight, which is organized in 30 states.
Yet despite obstacles, the mood among Harris—now Harris/Walz—supporters remains buoyant, agreed Allison, Tran, Jhawer and Latham.
“This is our time, our talent, our treasure,” Allison said. “This is the East Bay’s moment.”
Perhaps Walz expressed that sentiment best in his introductory speech in Philadelphia, when he turned to Harris and said, “Thank you for bringing back the joy.”
Writer Janis Hashe is, as a private citizen, a member of Indivisible East Bay/CA-8.
