For Biden and Harris, a Delicate and Sometimes Awkward Dance

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For Biden and Harris, a Delicate and Sometimes Awkward Dance

In the days after President Biden’s disastrous debate performance, aides to Vice President Kamala Harris got word of an exchange that a staff member from the White House legislative affairs office had with a member of Congress about why Democrats should continue to support Mr. Biden’s re-election bid.

Ms. Harris’s aides were concerned that in making the case for Mr. Biden, the legislative affairs office had denigrated her political strength and suggested that she would not be as strong a candidate against Donald J. Trump.

The aides quickly reached out to Jeff Zients, the White House chief of staff, to alert him about the call.

Their message was that it was fine for the administration’s surrogates to whip support for Mr. Biden — and that they were totally behind that effort — but that Mr. Biden’s team needed to be careful not to do it at the expense of degrading the vice president.

Mr. Zients got in touch with the White House director of legislative affairs, Shuwanza Goff, and told her that her staff needed to be disciplined about not undercutting the vice president as the president’s team navigated the treacherous topic of Mr. Biden’s chances of winning and what the uncertainty meant for Ms. Harris.

The episode, described by White House aides and allies of the president and vice president, illustrates the highly unusual and delicate situation that Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris, and their staffs, allies, supporters and the campaign, have found themselves in since Mr. Biden plunged his candidacy into crisis on the debate stage just two and a half weeks ago.

Mr. Biden has remained intent so far on shutting down any talk that there is a more attractive alternative to him — and that Ms. Harris is the most obvious alternative. Ms. Harris in turn has remained diligently loyal to Mr. Biden, but her allies do not want that loyalty to lead her to being cast as insufficiently strong to win in November if she were to end up leading the ticket.

The situation is only becoming more awkward as pressure grows on Mr. Biden from party leaders to bow out of the race, a step that would leave Ms. Harris as the most likely Democratic nominee. And it is all playing out in the close quarters of a White House that has sought for three and a half years to remain free of internal drama.

The discussions about the legislative affairs message also surfaced another tricky topic for the White House officials amid the intensifying maelstrom: Communications about Mr. Biden’s campaign could violate the Hatch Act, which forbids federal employees from engaging in political activities while on the job.

Even before the debate, Mr. Biden had told confidants that he believed he had a far better chance than Ms. Harris of beating Mr. Trump. Mr. Biden further embraced that conviction as he deflected growing calls from Democrats for him to step aside — and it ******** part of his consideration now about whether to remain in the race, according to two people familiar with his thinking.

By making the case for himself publicly and privately, Mr. Biden has implicitly had to downplay her chances of winning. And in supporting him, Ms. Harris has been careful not to come across as focused on her own political future, even at a time when she appears to be finding her footing and some polls show her faring just as well as, if not better than, Mr. Biden against Mr. Trump.

In recent days, according to three people familiar with the matter, Mr. Biden is said to be more receptive to listening to arguments for why he should step aside — and, instead of insisting that he alone can win, is asking questions about how Ms. Harris could win. Mr. Biden, ill with Covid, is spending the next several days secluded at his beach house in Delaware.

In the hours after the debate, Ms. Harris rallied to Mr. Biden’s side, going on television to acknowledge that Mr. Biden had “a slow start” but to try to direct the attention back on Mr. Trump and the threat that the campaign says he poses to the country.

Less than two days later, one of the first examples of the awkward dance between them occurred when the Biden campaign sent out a fund-raising email that included a graphic showing how Mr. Biden stacked up against other Democratic alternatives.

“And at the end of the day, we’d switch to candidates who would, according to the polls, be less likely to win than Joe Biden — the only person ever to defeat Donald Trump,” the email said.

The email showed that Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris had identical numbers when polled against Mr. Trump, with likely voters favoring Mr. Trump by three points over both of them.

Ms. Harris’s staff was not asked to sign off on the email. But after it was sent, several of her allies and supporters grew ******, believing that the campaign was unnecessarily tarnishing her.

In response, Ms. Harris’s aides tried to reassure her allies and supporters that Ms. Harris had a responsibility to stand by the president and allow him to say that he is uniquely positioned to win.

Ms. Harris’s aides have kept up that refrain in the days since, telling anyone who will listen that they do not begrudge the line being pushed about Mr. Biden being the best candidate, as they know that Mr. Biden and the campaign have no other choice and that they do not interpret the claims as “throwing shade” on Ms. Harris.

“Vice President Harris is proud to be a loyal and steadfast partner to President Biden and has helped build and sustain the broad coalition of Americans that elected them in 2020,” said Kirsten Allen, the director of communications for Ms. Harris.

Ms. Harris’s aides know well that she is in a delicate position as she pursues an aggressive campaign schedule. The vice president is intent on calling out Mr. Trump — and now in taking on his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio — but she also must not overshadow her boss.

In private calls and conversations, she has sought to rally Democrats behind Mr. Biden, according to an administration official, who said she had delivered a simple message: stay aligned.

But making the situation all the more complicated is that Mr. Biden’s faltering led to Ms. Harris’s two best weeks in the public eye, as she emerged as the most forceful messengers of the Biden campaign and convinced many Democrats, even some who were critical of her early performance in office, that she could lead the ticket.

After speaking to more than two dozen Democrats and donors at a recent private luncheon in San Francisco, one person in attendance said he had watched “a different Kamala” compared with the first two years of the administration.

Ms. Harris’s rise has also caught the attention of Mr. Trump. He has increasingly attacked her at rallies, and his advisers are planning to portray her as the “******** left” at the *********** National Convention this week. Ms. Harris has in turn embraced the traditional vice-presidential role of ******* dog to assail Mr. Trump, saying he would “weaponize the Department of Justice against his political enemies” during a rally in Dallas last week. The next day in Greensboro, N.C., she caught the attention of voters when she said Mr. Trump “bows down to dictators.”

During a trip meant to galvanize ****** voters in Nevada this week, Mr. Biden also made a point of commending Ms. Harris.

“She’s not only a great vice president,” Mr. Biden said at the N.A.A.C.P. conference in Las Vegas. “She could be president of the ******* States.” Mr. Biden came up with the line himself, according to a senior White House official.

Ms. Harris’s building momentum comes after she struggled to define her role in her first two years in office amid difficult assignments — such as addressing the root causes of migration and the *********** effort to restrict voting rights. She often appeared scripted and cautious in public settings, causing concern even among her allies and some aides who said privately that they needed to get Ms. Harris away from the teleprompter, out of Washington and on the ground.

In Mr. Biden’s first two years in office, West Wing staff members privately expressed frustration about Ms. Harris’s hesitation to being deployed to speak about certain crises. Those close to Ms. Harris have acknowledged that she at times has been concerned she was being deployed only to speak about ****** or women’s issues.

Brenda Pollard, a Democratic delegate for Mr. Biden, said she hoped Mr. Biden would not step down as the nominee. But she also said it was possible to envision Ms. Harris leading the ticket.

“If he cannot do it, he’ll decide not to do it,” said Ms. Pollard, of Durham, N.C. “And I hope he says, ‘My vice president has been by my side.’”

“She knows the job,” Ms. Pollard said. “She wants to get it done.”

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