NYT Buried Lede: WI Dems Told Kamala to Stay Away

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How did Wisconsin Democrats eke out an electoral victory in the 2025 state supreme court race? Part of that strategy consisted of making sure their 2024 presidential nominee stayed out of Wisconsin, as it turns out. 

Of course, one has to read more than two-thirds of the New York Times’ profile of Kamala Harris and her political future before reading how her party sees her in the present. In the first high-profile electoral fight of this cycle, Wisconsin Democrats not only didn’t invite Harris to campaign, they actively hid her barely-there involvement until after the polls closed:

In a rare move, she spoke by Zoom on the eve of the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election to about 100 Democratic workers and organizers in the state, praising their efforts on her campaign and ahead of the judicial contest.

“I know you all will never give up, and that we’re going to continue to wage this fight — in the voting booth and in the courts and in the public square,” Ms. Harris said, according to a participant on the call.

Tellingly, however, Ms. Harris’s offer to visit Wisconsin was rejected as a potential distraction during early voting, according to people briefed on the discussions. And even the Zoom call was kept private until after the polls closed, at the request of Wisconsin Democrats, who feared that reports of her involvement would divert attention from Elon Musk, the overriding target of the Democratic campaign.

One has to read thirty-four paragraphs in a feature about Harris’ future in the Democrat Party to find out what her present looks like. What pressing matters does the New York Times cover in the first thirty-four paragraphs that take precedence over this actual news item?

• A speech in which Harris wouldn’t mention Trump’s name
• Doug Emhoff’s apparent decision not to leave his law firm after cutting a deal with the Trump administration
• Hiring an agent
• Her uncleaned garage
• Mulling over whether to launch a “policy institute”
• Doug Emhoff hiring an agent
• Going to Broadway shows
• Mulling over renting an apartment in NYC
• Attending an Oscars party
• Going grocery shopping
• Dining in vs dining out discussions with Emhoff

Pretty gripping stuff. Much like Harris’ campaign, it’s easy to check out from this largely worthless profile, which tells us nothing new except for how Wisconsin Democrats kept Harris under wraps to salvage their supreme-court election. The only other newsy item — Emhoff’s refusal to turn down the lucrative post at the law firm after the deal with the Trump administration — had already been well covered before now. 

Why would a “Paper of Record” bury this news so deeply in a feature that purports to analyze Harris’ future? Doesn’t this demonstrate that Harris’ own party has no confidence in any “future” she or her adoring Protection Racket Media imagine? Most people probably checked out at the point where Harris’ Broadway show attendance pops up — and one has to wonder whether that was the NYT’s intent. If it weren’t for Rusty Weiss at RedState, I wouldn’t have fought off narcolepsy long enough to reach that point of the article, either. 

Once you get to paragraph 37 or so, the profile becomes much more interesting. No one wants Harris to run for president in 2028. Democrats are trying to explain that she will be seen as a figure of the “past,” when the real story is that Harris is simply incompetent and won’t win anyway. The Times even casts cold water on her prospects in California’s gubernatorial race, where she faces a far friendlier electorate. But her pending candidacy is not clearing the field there either:

By contrast, some people close to Ms. Harris believe she would effectively glide to the California governor’s mansion when the seat opens up next year. Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a close friend, is expected to drop out of the race if Ms. Harris enters it. And former Representative Katie Porter, the Orange County Democrat who announced her campaign for governor last month, has said that Ms. Harris would most likely have a “near field-clearing effect.”

Others are less certain. Xavier Becerra, Mr. Biden’s former health secretary and a former California attorney general, got into the race last week and said he would not withdraw if Ms. Harris joined it.

Another Democratic candidate, former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles — who ceded the field to Ms. Harris when she ran for the Senate in 2016 — has publicly pushed her to make up her mind. He has said the 2026 primary would not be a “coronation.”

Gee, doesn’t all of this sound more like Paragraph 5 material rather than Paragraph 42 material? Especially in relation to Harris’ future, which is the supposed point of the NYT profile?

The reason that Harris isn’t clearing the field is that Democrats know what they so far refuse to say out loud: Harris is a complete incompetent. If anyone runs against her, they stand a very good chance of defeating her, especially when Harris speaks publicly even under the most mildly adversarial conditions. The idea that Harris will launch a “policy institute” is especially absurd for anyone who has heard her attempt to speak on policy, either in a speech or especially in an interview or debate. That’s why Wisconsin Democrats kept her out of the state and didn’t reveal her fundraising role until after the polls closed. 

“If she ran for dogcatcher,” Sean Spicer tells Mark Halperin today, “she’d lose”:

“If she ran for dogcatcher, she’d lose,” says @SeanSpicer about Kamala Harris, after he read a new book about the 2024 campaign, “Fight,” by @amieparnes and @jonallendc. “It is so bad, when you start to read how horrible of a candidate she was, about the staff infighting … Her… pic.twitter.com/kegoVydxXB

— 2WAY (@2waytvapp) April 11, 2025

Yes, and all of the Protection Racket Media can’t prevent Harris from getting exposed as a trainwreck and incompetent. That lede will not stay buried, no matter how hard the NYT tries.

Did you think that media gaslighting ended in November 2024, even for Kamala Harris? Think again! The Protection Racket Media will work hard to reinflate the Harris bubble, or a new bubble around another empty progressive suit soon enough. It’s never been more important to support independent media platforms that keep the focus on this abuse and can credibly analyze and criticize its corrosive nature. There is no better time to join our VIP Membership program! 

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