Early last year, I joined Kamala Harris on a mostly unremarkable day trip to Atlanta, where she talked about climate change and promoted the Biden administration’s tax credits for electric vehicles. It was the day after the president’s third State of the Union address, and Harris was still struggling to earn respect. Some pundits and donors had spent recent months whispering that she’d been a disappointment as far back as her 2020 presidential campaign, and chatter was circulating— not for the first time—as to whether Joe Biden should remove her from his reelection ticket. At the same time, I’d been hearing from Democratic strategists that Harris’s image was far better than Biden’s among Black voters, especially Black women, and that this was being badly underappreciated in the Beltway parlor games. “Younger girls kind of see her in a way that younger African Americans saw Barack Obama: This too can happen; there too can I be,” Cornell Belcher, a pollster who’d worked on Obama’s 2008 campaign, told me that winter. “It’s beyond politics; it’s beyond cultural. It’s a spiritual thing.”
“From a political standpoint,” Belcher added, “that shit is gold.”
Few national outlets were following Harris’s work during that period, and none took notice that her first stop in Atlanta was to record an interview with Steve Harvey, whose radio show reaches millions of mostly Black listeners. At one point in the conversation, Harvey slipped and called Harris “Madam President.” He only half-apologized: “My bad,” he said. “Probably just a hope.” As Harris promoted Biden’s insulin price caps, Harvey sounded impressed, and at the end of the interview, he got earnest. “You mean a lot to so many people,” he told her.
Denne historien er fra July 24 - August 11, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra July 24 - August 11, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.
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The Escape Artist
PinkPantheress blew up anonymously on TikTok. Now, her Y2K dance-pop influences the masses.
The Parasites of MALIBU
Anthony Flores and Anna Moore met Dr. Mark Sawusch at an ice-cream shop.
THE INVITED
WHEN YOU'RE A VIC-\"VERY IMPORTANT CLIENT\" -LUXURY BRANDS ANYTHING TO KEEP YOU HAPPY (AND SPENDING). WILL DO
LEARNING THE ART OF SEDUCTION FROM THE KING OF HÖRNINESS
There are two things that make women happy,” Usher Raymond IV tells me.
Magic Mikey
She gave up competitive horseback riding to pursue acting. Now, the rising star is getting awards buzz for her role as a determined stripper in Anora
'Mommy, Can We Go to Paris?
You try explaining to my kid why he can't do the wildly expensive things some of his Brownstone Brooklyn classmates take for granted.
Plus-Size Shopping in the Wild
Samyra Miller’s quest to find clothes at the mall that fit.
Hungry for More
A decade of Chicken Shop Date behind her, Amelia Dimoldenberg is still holding out for the One.
BIRTHDAY SUITS
On the cusp of 50, CHLOË SEVIGNY is ready for a change.
Art Fall Preview - World in Motion - An Alvin Ailey retrospective sets the tone for an array of eclectic offerings from the art world this fall.
An Alvin Ailey retrospective sets the tone for an array of eclectic offerings from the art world this fall. A gust of fresh air is blowing through the art world. A brand-new outfit called Ruby/Dakota has opened on the supercool strip of East 2nd Street. A whole new scene has formed around 56 Henry's two gallery spaces in Chinatown, and solo shows there by Laurie Simmons and Richard Tinkler promise to scintillate. Just north of the Whitney, Fort Gansevoort Gallery regularly showcases undiscovered artists, including, in September, 84-year-old quilt-maker extraordinaire Yvonne Wells. A gaggle of established artists are also exhibiting-Kara Walker, Simone Leigh, Nick Cave, and the still under-known Denzil Forrester among them. And the museums will have their fair share of thrilling exhibitions, too: The Whitney will feature American national treasure Alvin Ailey, MoMA will peer deep into its own brilliant bellybutton in a show about the woman who helped make the museum, and the Brooklyn Museum will give us an enormous show of artists based in its borough.