Why Kamala Harris' climate record may be a secret weapon for Dems

(This opinion piece first appeared in our partner site, Callaway Climate Insights)

It is fitting that the day President Joe Biden dropped out of the election race this past weekend was the hottest single day ever recorded, according to Copernicus.

Biden will go down as a hero and one of our most accomplished presidents, but also a victim of the most collective national ageism frenzy in history. It is sad; but that’s politics. His climate policies will also be remembered, but as global warming clearly demonstrated Sunday, they were never enough.

Vice President Kamala Harris’s climate politics, forged during a career and campaigns ahead of her time in the White House, are more progressive than Biden’s. They will become a high-profile attack point for the former President Donald Trump’s campaign. Her calls to ban fracking are already under siege in gas-rich Pennsylvania.

The flip side of that is her progressive climate stance will attract more young voters, and while that might mean little in some swing states, it does mean something. Particularly when you find that states like Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are among the most progressive renewable energy hubs in the nation along with their fossil fuel ambitions.

But Harris’ secret weapon is her focus on social justice, which has always been her main draw, as a prosecutor and as a senator. It is an important part of the climate story and also the immigration story, the crime story, and the inequality story that are all gripping the country this election cycle.

While much of the early media hysteria on Harris is focusing on her climate stance as a weakness, it actually can be a strength in this case. She should ram a stake into the ground on it and not try to play both sides of the energy debate like Biden does. She needs to be her own candidate and she has the cred to do it.