Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at the Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote Presidential Town Hall at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on July 13, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Drew Hallowell/Getty Images)

In the hours after President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign, Brian Clardy, historian and Kentucky delegate to the 2020 Democratic National Convention, worried that a divisive fight for the nomination could spell electoral disaster for Democrats in November.

“Democrats cannot afford to go into this thing split. They just cannot afford to do it. History has proven that when Democrats are divided, Democrats lose,” Clardy, a professor at Murray State University, said in an interview with the Lantern Sunday evening.?

Twenty-four hours later, any chance of a spirited open contest had all but evaporated as Democratic delegates, including those from Kentucky, unified behind Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden’s choice to succeed him as president.

Fresh off endorsing Harris on national television, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear spoke Monday morning to a virtual meeting of Kentucky’s delegates who will head next month to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Beshear, on a short list of ?potential running mates for Harris, urged the state’s delegates to come out in support of the vice president, which they did almost unanimously.?

“She’s ready to lead, and so there was not much debate at all,” said delegate and state lawmaker Reggie Thomas, who was in the meeting and chairs the Kentucky Senate Democratic Caucus. ”We support Kamala Harris and we’re ready for her to become our nominee and to take on and defeat Donald Trump,” Thomas said.

Only one of Kentucky’s 59 delegates dissented, saying she didn’t yet know Harris’ stand on a ceasefire in Gaza, according to someone who attended the meeting but did not remember the dissenting delegate’s name. Kentucky Public Radio also attributed the dissenting vote to concerns about Israel’s war in Gaza.

First-time delegate Robert Kahne of Louisville said he is impressed by the speed with which Democrats have coalesced around Harris, including potential rivals who have endorsed her. “My personal opinion is Democrats are mostly about one thing: defeating Donald Trump. Not having to talk about each other — and talking about Donald Trump — is better,” said Kahne.

Kahne is realistic about the unlikelihood in Kentucky of any Democrat defeating the former Republican president. Trump has carried the state twice by wide margins. No Democrat for president has won Kentucky since Bill Clinton in 1996.

But Kahne says the rejuvenated Democratic ticket at the top of the November ballot could help Kentucky Democrats turn out voters in state legislative races, especially in suburban districts. “If you give up now you’re never going to win,” he said.

Kahne, who hosts “My Old Kentucky Podcast,” also predicts that abortion will be a major issue in the first presidential election since the fall of Roe v. Wade and that voters’ perception of the economy could break for Democrats “at just the right time.”

In 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, Kentuckians, to the surprise of many, defeated an anti-abortion constitutional amendment; voter worries about the loss of abortion rights also contributed to disappointing results for Republicans in midterm congressional races that year. Nonetheless, courts in Kentucky have allowed the state’s near-total ban on abortion to stand. And attempts by Democrats and Republicans to loosen the restrictions have gotten nowhere in the Republican-controlled legislature.

Ona Marshall, founder of the Kentucky Reproductive Freedom Fund, sees Kentucky at a “critical crossroads” and says “one of the major ways that we can have a path forward here is to get federal protections.”

Marshall says Harris has been a more outspoken advocate for reproductive rights than Biden. “She’s been fighting all along to restore rights and protect reproductive freedom in every state.”?

A spokesperson for Kentucky American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) told the Lantern the chapter is “encouraged by VP Harris’ record on abortion access.”

Among the delegates “enthusiastically” endorsing Harris was Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, who also praised Biden and said his presidency would be “historic for cities like Louisville” and the country.?

Greenberg told reporters? he is looking forward to the convention. “I’m excited to get together with folks from around the country to talk about what we can do to continue to make historic investments in cities like Louisville,” Greenberg said. “We need to make sure that we continue to partner with the federal government to make Louisville safer, stronger and healthier. I know Vice President Harris is committed to that, Gov. Beshear is committed to that and I look forward to working with mayors and other elected officials across the convention on plans to continue to do that in the coming years.”?

Lots of talk about Beshear’s shot at vice president

Speculation about Beshear’s chances of becoming Harris’ running mate dominated political talk in Kentucky Monday as Democrats touted the governor’s electoral appeal and Republicans voiced more skepticism.

Kahne, the Democratic convention delegate, dismissed the conventional wisdom that candidates should pick a running mate who can help carry a swing state as obsolete and said it “very rarely works out in that way.”?

Kahne says Harris and Beshear would complement and balance each other. “Andy Beshear would make a great contrast to Kamala Harris. And they also have a lot in common. They were both attorneys general and state politicians deeply loved by their bases.”

Tres Watson, former spokesperson for the Republican Party of Kentucky, said being tapped as vice president would be great for Beshear but a “horrible move” for Harris, who would gain neither an electoral or fund-raising advantage from putting Beshear on the ticket.

Watson also predicted that Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance would “run circles around” Beshear in a debate. “I think other than being a white guy, what does Andy Beshear bring to this ticket? Nothing,” Watson said.

During his Monday morning appearance on MSNBC, Beshear took swipes at Vance, who wrote about his Eastern Kentucky family roots in his bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.” ?

“I want the American people to know what a Kentuckian is and what they look like, because let me just tell you that J.D. Vance ain’t from here,” Beshear said.

Later in the day, according to CNN, Vance responded with a swipe at Beshear. “It’s very weird to have a guy whose first job was at his dad’s law firm and inherited the governorship from his father to criticize my origin story.” Vance added that “nobody gave me a job because of who my father was. I’m proud of that.”

Republican Trey Grayson, a former secretary of state, said Beshear, a three-time (counting attorney general) elected Democrat in a red state, could bring a “middle American presence” to the Harris ticket.

“I’m not convinced he’s going to get it, but I understand why he would certainly be on the list,” Grayson said, adding there’s “no downside” for Beshear in pursuing what could be a path to raise his political profile and put him in line for a cabinet position or even the presidency.

Grayson said Republican Vance, whose memoir recounts a childhood made turbulent by his mother’s addiction and family dysfunction, has a more interesting life story than Beshear, the son of a prominent elected official and two-term governor. But Beshear has more political experience than Vance.

Also, running mates are often asked to go on the offensive, which is not the Beshear brand, although Harris might be looking for something different in a running mate, Grayson said.

Beshear joining the Harris ticket would not put Kentucky in play, Grayson said. “We’re just too Republican. Trump’s too popular.”

Thomas, the Democratic state senator, was more optimistic about a Democrat’s chances of winning Kentucky’s eight electoral votes with Beshear on the ticket. “That’s not going to be an easy task. … I wouldn’t go as far to say that Kentucky will turn blue overnight, but I think Kentucky will get behind him should he be on the national ticket,” Thomas said.

Conventions past

In an interview with the Lantern, former two-term Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton, a Democrat, also stressed the advantages of a? harmonious convention. Patton cited 1972 when Kentucky Gov. Wendell Ford and most of the the state’s delegates supported Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson. The convention nominated Sen. George McGovern, who lost in a landslide to incumbent President Richard Nixon.

Clardy, the history professor, cited the tumultuous Democratic convention from four years earlier in 1968 as what the party should avoid. After President Lyndon B. Johnson, weakened by popular opposition to the Vietnam War, chose not to seek reelection, Nixon won the White House.

Patton said he supports Harris or any Democrat who can oppose Trump. Patton said he has “serious doubts” that Trump, if he wins, would abide by the constitutional limit on presidents serving only two terms.

One big advantage Harris brings over other would-be Democratic nominees: Money. She can argue that her position on what was the Biden ticket qualifies her campaign to tap the $96 million already in Biden’s war chest at the end of June, though Republicans will almost certainly challenge that view.

Harris would be the first Black woman to become president — though not the first Black woman to run for president, a distinction that belongs to Shirley Chisholm, also the first Black woman to be elected to Congress. Clardy said passing over Harris, a graduate of the historically Black Howard University, would have produced “deep resentment” among Black voters, potentially causing them to sit out the election and handing the presidency to Trump.?