Why do "firsts" usually come from right-of-center parties?
Or, why Kamala Harris' supporters should talk more about her qualifications and policies and less about her identity.
In major developed democracies, we typically associate left-of-center parties with greater concern for the status of women and minorities. Given this, it is notable that all "firsts" among G7 leaders—with the sole exception of former U.S. President Barack Obama—have come from right-of-center parties. Kim Campbell, the first female Prime Minister of Canada, was a Progressive Conservative (the predecessor of today’s Conservative Party of Canada). Angela Merkel, the first female Chancellor of Germany, was from the center-right Christian Democratic Union. Margaret Thatcher and Rishi Sunak, the first female and non-white U.K. Prime Ministers, respectively, were from the Conservative party. Giorgia Meloni, the first female Prime Minister of Italy, is from the far-right Brothers of Italy party. There are also former U.K. Prime Ministers Theresa May and Liz Truss, who were both Conservatives, albeit not firsts, thanks to Thatcher.
If we look outside the G7, there are a few more “firsts” from left-of-center parties (e.g., Julia Gillard in Australia, Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, Mary Robinson in Ireland, Magdalena Andersson in Sweden, Gro Brundtland in Norway, Helle Thorning-Schmidt in Denmark), as well as from right-of-center and centrist parties (e.g., Katalin Novák in Hungary, Leo Varadkar in Ireland, Brigitte Bierlein in Austria (a right-of-center independent), Anneli Jäätteenmäki in Finland). In lower offices, there tend to be more female and minority candidates and leaders in left-of-center parties, as far as I know (e.g, certainly in the U.S. Congress and Canadian Parliament), which makes sense given that there is a larger pool of female and minority supporters from those parties for candidates to emerge from. But among executives, such as U.S. state Governors, the numbers are sometimes more balanced than one might expect. For example, among U.S. Governors holding office since 2000, 14/32 female Governors and 5/11 non-white Governors have been Republicans. Female and non-white Governors are therefore drawn at a higher rate from Republican voters than from Democrat voters.
Why, then, do conservatives seem to be overrepresented among “firsts” in major executive roles in major developed democracies? Some Google Scholar searching did not reveal a large literature nor a clear answer (which doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t exist), but here are three hypotheses:
Although most people like “firsts”, most people—conservatives especially—don’t like being told to vote for someone because of their demographic identity. This incentivizes conservative female and minority candidates to emphasize their qualifications rather than their identity, which is a better political strategy for all candidates.
Left-wing parties sometimes create self-fulfilling prophecies, which hurt female and minority candidates, by overstating the electability challenges such candidates may face in general elections due to discrimination. This discourages some of their voters from electing female and minority candidates in primaries, even though those voters would like or even prefer to have a female or minority candidate in office.
Conservative voters who oppose affirmative action and other identitarian political agendas may fear such agendas less from a female or minority candidate who is conservative. Conservative voters may in fact find a conservative female or minority candidate more effective in opposing identitarian agendas than a conservative white-male candidate. Progressive voters may find it more difficult to oppose a female or minority candidate—especially a “first”—even if they have strong disagreements with them on policy. Both of these patterns would work in favor of conservative female and minority candidates.
I look forward to hearing thoughts, from those more knowledgeable about this topic than I am (e.g., Alice Evans should do a post on this!), about: (i) whether the pattern I am describing is as noteworthy as I think it is (it could just be a historical fluke specific to the G7?); and (ii) whether the hypotheses I describe to explain it are plausible. However, if I am indeed onto something here, there is a clear implied lesson for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign and for her supporters in the media.
Harris’ supporters should talk less about her identity, if they want her to win
Agree with Harris’ stances and policies or not, she is clearly a decent person, very intelligent, accomplished, and well-qualified for the job of President of the United States. She has served as District Attorney of San Francisco, Attorney General of California, U.S. Senator, and Vice President. People close to her describe her as someone who is smart and evidence-driven, who pays attention to details, and who takes her time to form opinions about issues.
She certainly has some political vulnerabilities in the general election—her handling of immigration as VP, her flip-flopping, her 2020 stances on issues like the violent summer-of-2020 protests (which are somewhat at odds with her moderate, tough-on-crime record in California) and climate and energy policy (e.g., for a fracking ban and the Green New Deal), and her general association in the public mind with unpopular progressive identity politics (partly thanks to President Biden’s fore-fronting of her identity in discussing his picking her as his running mate).
But she also has political strengths—her ability to criticize the GOP’s unpopular position on abortion, her moderate tough-on-crime record as a prosecutor in California (see above), her record of taking on the big banks following the 2008 financial crisis, and—perhaps her biggest strength of all—the fact that she’s not Donald Trump (a polarizing, amoral, unpopular-with-independents, flip-flopping, nearly-80 and also often confused, serial liar and convicted felon, who has not been endorsed by his previous Vice President nor by most of his previous cabinet secretaries and aides).
If she picks a moderate running mate (like Governors Josh Shapiro or Andy Beshear), and she—as Matt Yglesias suggests—both distances herself from unpopular progressive stances (e.g., anti-Americanism and left-wing extremism in education) and makes it clear that she plans to govern from the center on issues like immigration, climate and energy, education, and crime, my guess is that she stands a very good chance of beating Trump in November.
On the other hand, if she tacks towards the unpopular left to shore up her base in the primary, or if the progressive wing of her party relentlessly attacks her for any heresies against their agenda (e.g., on Israel, immigration, or energy), or if the mainstream pundit class unites in telling moderate and conservative Americans that anyone who votes against her is a sexist racist, then I think there is a good chance that she will lose, and her supporters will have to re-acquaint themselves with President Trump in January. It will be the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign all over again.
Lots of people are already telling Harris to tack to the center, so let me end this post by focusing on the pundit class.
Most of the time I have seen Harris’ candidacy talked about recently in the New York Times, on CNN, and in other mainstream-progressive outlets, her identity has been a big focus: The party can’t pass over her as a Black woman, even if she’s politically vulnerable. That would insult Black women, who are the backbone of the party. Can she win as a Black woman, despite all the racist voters? If she runs, she definitely needs to pick a white-male running mate to broaden her appeal (see: racist voters).
I worry that the repeated emphasis on these storylines sends two messages to the American public: 1) The progressive pundit class thinks the most interesting thing about Kamala Harris is her skin color and gender. 2) The progressive pundit class are far more obsessed with identity than the average American is. The first message (Harris’ identity is the most important thing about her) is inaccurate and, frankly, racist. As I summarized above, there are policies and issues people will disagree with VP Harris on, but she is undoubtedly an intelligent, accomplished, and impressive person. The second message (progressive pundits are obsessed with identity) is probably true, but it is unhelpful to Harris’ campaign to keep reminding us of that, especially since Trump’s and Vance’s campaigns are explicitly positioning them as the anti-woke candidates (which, like it or not, is a more popular-with-the-public posture than progressive pundits would like to believe).
In summary, if Harris wants to win the presidency, she should talk about the issues that matter to average voters, in the ways that average voters think about them (i.e. to the center of her 2020 campaign). If Harris’ supporters in media want her to win the presidency, they should talk about her qualifications, her positions on issues, and her record. If she wins, then of course her “firsts” should be widely noted and celebrated (and then moved on from, as they were with Obama). But voters of all stripes want to vote for a person and a set of policies, not a token. Isn’t that what progress is supposed to be about anyway?
Great article, smart advice for Harris’s campaign.