How Kamala Harris has emerged as an early winner of the GOP primary

The presumption that Democrats’ 51-seat Senate majority would give President Joe Biden a bit more breathing room has crashed hard into the reality of the 2024 election cycle, as several moderates have gone wobbly or — in Sen. Joe Manchin’s case — downright oppositional when it comes to advancing some of the White House’s legislative priorities and nominees.

But this week, presidential politics have actually bailed out the administration and saved Vice President Kamala Harris a few trips to Capitol Hill.

With Manchin opposing Biden’s nominee to lead the Council of Economic Advisers, Jared Bernstein, some Senate Democrats assumed Harris would have to head to the Hill on Tuesday to break a 50-50 tie, as she did a record 29 times over the administration’s first two years when the Senate was evenly divided. Harris, whose office is routinely in contact with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s team and the Office of Legislative Affairs about what’s on the schedule, and where and when she may be needed, was on standby.

And she would have been needed — if every Republican was present.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) wasn’t in the Capitol when Bernstein’s floor vote took place. He had just traveled north to New Jersey to join Donald Trump at his Bedminster mansion for a rally of sorts just hours after the former president was indicted in a Miami courtroom. White House legislative affairs staffers keeping watch in the Senate chamber relayed the surprising news to the vice president’s office that she wouldn’t have to scramble her schedule and motorcade across town.

On Wednesday, Harris’ office was prepared for another deadlocked Senate vote. Once again, Manchin was voting against a Biden judicial nominee, Dale Ho. And, once again, a Republican missed the vote. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), now running for president himself, was scheduled to host a town hall with caucus-goers in Pella, Iowa, according to a release from his campaign.

Harris, whose team got word Wednesday morning that aides felt “pretty good there would be a Republican absence,” stayed put across town in her office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

According to a source familiar with operations, OLA staffers will send Harris’ team a weekly email flagging votes that could require her to break a tie. Her office will then chat through various contingencies, figuring out how her schedule might change in the event of a last-minute trip to the Hill.

Scott was absent once again on Thursday, sparing Harris for a third straight day. Even with Manchin opposed, the Senate was able to confirm Nusrat Choudhury to be a U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of New York by a 50-49 vote.

“With an election right around the corner, vote counting is going to get a lot more difficult,” said Jim Manley, a longtime aide to Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid. “It’s just a calculation both sides are going to have to make.”

Given that Republicans took back control of the House in November, the White House isn’t expecting the third and fourth years of Biden’s term to be as focused on legislation as his first two were. Instead, aides are looking to implement and sell voters on what they’ve done.

One main exception, however, is with nominations, as the administration continues what communications director Ben LaBolt called an “intense focus” on getting judges confirmed (Choudhury was the 134th Biden judicial nominee the Senate has approved). Chief of staff Jeff Zients, who an administration official said convenes a weekly meeting to go over confirmations and figure out creative ways to get nominees through a narrowly-divided Senate, tweeted that Choudhury’s confirmation was a demonstration of “what a priority this is for @POTUS.”

On such votes, Democrats can only afford to lose one member on their side and still confirm nominees with Harris casting the decisive vote — a matter complicated further by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), whose poor health could lead to future absences.

“We recognize we are in a new phase,” one White House official said, noting that Biden is ahead of his recent predecessors with the pace of overall confirmations.

Biden’s first nomination to replace a departed Cabinet member appears to be stalled, as acting Labor Secretary Julie Su does not appear to have the 50 votes needed to win confirmation and shed the “acting” label unless a Republican comes to her rescue. But the White House has yet to withdraw her nomination. That’s not because they’re hoping to sneak her through when enough Republicans are absent, officials said. Rather, discussions with key lawmakers are ongoing.

Senate Democratic leaders have thus far opted against taking advantage of GOP absences in a way that would be considered a breach of decorum that could alienate the moderates in their own caucus.

Tuberville has angered Democrats for imposing a hold on around 250 Pentagon promotions in protest of the department’s new policy to pay travel costs for service members seeking abortion or other reproductive care. His absence Tuesday offered Schumer and Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) an unexpected opportunity to attempt to push them through without him there. While Durbin said it was “tempting,” he decided against it.

That said, Democrats’ calculations could always change as election season nears, with decorum giving way to political expediency, the longer the administration’s nominees and promotions are stalled.