In the wake of the 2024 presidential election loss, former Vice President Kamala Harris has engaged in public reflections, centering her recent remarks on the perceived failure of the Democratic Party to fully value and prioritize the interests of Black women. She articulated her frustration by asserting that the party has “long taken black women for granted” and detailed her administration’s focus on addressing critical disparities facing this demographic.
Policy and Disparity: The Maternal Health Crisis
Harris specifically highlighted the significant crisis of maternal mortality and other women’s health issues, such as fibroids, as areas she prioritized during her time in office. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other health organizations underline the urgency of this focus.
Concrete Data on Racial Disparity in Maternal Mortality (2023): The maternal mortality rate for Black, non-Hispanic women in the U.S. in 2023 was 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births. This rate was more than three times higher than the rate for White, non-Hispanic women (14.5 deaths per 100,000 live births) and significantly higher than for Hispanic women (12.4) and Asian women (10.7). Harris’s comments point to this stark gap as a central issue that requires sustained political commitment.
The former Vice President also claimed that the new administration’s regressive policies include cuts to funding for scientific research using terms like “woman” or “black,” reinforcing her commitment to addressing systemic disparities and refusing to “shy away from who I am” as a Black woman.
Electoral Performance and Strategic Claims
The discussion shifted to Harris’s campaign strategy, which she described as a sophisticated understanding of the opposition’s tactics, allowing her to remain focused on core issues like the economy. She notably characterized her approach as “chess, not checkers—three-dimensional chess.”
However, the electoral outcome invites scrutiny of this claimed strategic mastery. According to election data:
- Popular Vote: Harris lost the national popular vote by a margin of 1.5 percentage points to her opponent.
- Electoral College: She lost the Electoral College, receiving 226 electoral votes to her opponent’s 312.
- Swing States: Harris lost all seven key swing states, including the industrial states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In states like Georgia, while Harris received more votes than the 2020 Democratic nominee, her opponent’s vote total grew by an even larger margin, securing his win.
Analysis from the Pew Research Center indicates a shift in the winning coalition, with her opponent gaining support among diverse groups, including 15% of Black voters (up from 8% in 2020) and battling to near parity among Hispanic voters (winning 48% to Harris’s 51%).
Related Notable Event: The Supreme Court Nomination
Harris’s critique of identity politics as a neglected element of Democratic strategy also runs parallel to debates surrounding the party’s recent high-profile appointments. The nomination of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court was explicitly tied to the selection criteria of race and gender, as she is the first Black woman to serve on the highest court.
During Justice Jackson’s Senate confirmation hearing in March 2022, she was asked by Senator Marsha Blackburn to provide a definition for the word “woman.” Justice Jackson famously declined to define the term, stating, “I can’t… I’m not a biologist.” This exchange became a flashpoint in the national debate over identity, gender, and the role of progressive jurisprudence, serving as a key example cited by critics who question the Democratic Party’s emphasis on identity-based appointments.