Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris said that Russian election interference could cost Joe Biden the White House.
When asked about Russian election interference on CNN’s State of the Union, Harris said:
I am clear that Russia interfered in the election of the President of the United States in 2016. I serve on the senate intelligence committee. We have published detailed reports about exactly what we believe happened. And I do believe that there will be foreign interference in the 2020 election and that Russia will be at the front of the line.
CNN’s Dana Bash asked, “Could it cost you the White House?”
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Harris answered, “Theoretically of course, yes.”
Bash followed up, “And that’s based on what you’re hearing publicly?”
Harris talked about being realistic and voter suppression, “Let me just tell you something. We have to be a realistic and I’m a realist about it, Joe’s a realist about it. We have classic voter suppression coming up where after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, dozens of states passed laws that were designed to suppress the black vote, to suppress students from voting, to suppress our indigenous people, so much so that in North Carolina, the law was passed with surgical precision to get in the way of black voters from voting. So we have classic voter suppression. We have what happened in 2016, which is foreign interference. We have a president who has tried to convince the American people not to believe in the integrity of our election system and compromiser belief that their vote might actually count. These things are all at play.”
Video:
Sen. Kamala Harris warns that Russian election interference could cost Joe Biden the White House. #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/bKb2V1H0sL
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) September 6, 2020
The country has already seen what Russian election interference can do when it helped to cost Hillary Clinton the White House by 80,000 votes in three swing states.
If Russian election interference were allowed to run wild and unchecked, it could cost Democrats again. Sen. Harris is correct that no one should think that beating Donald Trump will be easy. Republicans have spent decades building a voter suppression system. Democrats showed in 2018 that it can be beaten, but even in the middle of a recession and a pandemic, Democrats will have to put forward a mighty effort to beat Trump and take back the Senate.
When Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012, it wasn’t easy, and it will take an equal effort to get Trump out of the White House in 2020.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
