Obama hails Harris, slams GOP election tactics in first post-DNC remarks

Former President Barack Obama offered a note of caution to Democrats buzzing over Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, telling donors on Martha’s Vineyard Monday night that the party needs to ramp up its focus – and spending – on down-ballot races across the country.

Former President Barack Obama offered a note of caution to Democrats buzzing over Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, telling donors on Martha’s Vineyard Monday night that the party needs to ramp up its focus – and spending – on down-ballot races across the country. “Kamala’s (convention) speech showed her command, that she’s prepared to be president,” Obama said, according to a partial transcript provided by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a party-aligned group fighting for fairer state and congressional maps. “She was outstanding, and the theme was joy. And so, people were feeling great. And I want everybody to feel great, but I also want everybody to get a little bit of a reality check.” The NDRC told CNN the fundraiser brought in $1.7 million. Obama at the event described Republican efforts to “redraw maps and manipulate the rules,” backed up by courts “that are willing to uphold unfair maps and unfair rules,” as both a power play by a party “that’s basically decided we can’t win on the basis of ideas” and the chief obstacle facing many of the politically popular policies Democrats are campaigning on with new gusto since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the nominee. “Politics in America is and always has been, not simply a matter of rhetoric and joy and excitement. It is also nuts and bolts exercises of power,” Obama said. “If we elect Kamala, but we haven’t dealt with the nuts and bolts issues that NDRC is focused on, she will confront the same nonsense that I had to deal with, with (then Senate Majority Leader Mitch) McConnell and (former House Speaker John) Boehner.” Democrats lost more than a thousand seats in state legislatures during Obama’s presidency, while also suffering a string of defeats at the gubernatorial level and in the US Congress, where Republicans won a 2010 House landslide before taking control of the Senate in 2014. The damage at the state level has been the most difficult for Democrats to unwind, in part due to gerrymandering by state GOP leaders.