The Presidential Parlor Game Continues

by ACEC President and CEO, Linda Bauer Darr:

I am writing this message on Tuesday morning, as I usually do, so here is a caveat at the outset: circumstances might have changed by the time you read this later today. Circumstances might change before I am done writing.

These are the kind of disclaimers that have become necessary over the last couple of weeks, during which we have seen an assassination attempt, a vice presidential pick, a remarkably unified GOP convention, a sitting president hounded into ending his campaign, and now a new parlor game: Will Vice President Kamala Harris be the Democrats’ candidate for the White House? Whom will she choose as her running mate? Can she beat Trump?

As of this morning, Harris has secured enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee, shifting the conversation to her potential running mate. It is still too early to prognosticate how the Harris campaign’s policy goals will differ from the Biden campaign. In a speech to her new campaign staff yesterday, the Vice President doubled down on the administration’s legislative successes, including infrastructure. It’s reasonable to think that building on that success will be a major part of her campaign. How her VP selection will impact this is still yet to be seen.

The campaign has requested vetting materials from five potential candidates: Govs. Roy Cooper (NC), Josh Shapiro (PA), Tim Walz (MN), JB Pritzker (IL), as well as Sen. Mark Kelly (AZ). With the exception of Pritzker, these candidates are from battleground states in which former President Trump is either leading or polling within the margin of error. It’s worth noting that no Republican has won Minnesota since Richard Nixon in 1972. Trump came within striking distance of taking the state in 2016, but he can win without it. If Democrats lose Minnesota, November 5 will be a rough night at Harris campaign headquarters.   

 This is the fun part of politics – the horserace. But even as we game out who’s up and who’s down, our role here at ACEC is to ensure that our industry comes out on the winning side. Politics is a merry-go-round. It spins. People get on. People get off. But regardless of who is in the seat, our industry and the value we deliver to Americans daily must be front and center in their minds. Where their process is cyclical, our value is constant, and our work can’t be impeded by a lack of awareness of and appreciation for our contributions.   

So our efforts on the Engineering and Public Works Roadshow are more critical now than ever. Through the Roadshow, we continue spotlighting engineering essentiality through the innovative and critically essential projects your firms deliver.  So, it was satisfying when we learned that our peers in the association and advocacy world recognized the Roadshow with a prominent award just this week. The American Society of Association Executives selected the Roadshow as a 2024 Power of Associations Silver Award recipient for being a group that “goes above and beyond our everyday mission to undertake initiatives that benefit America and the world.”

So we are being recognized for doing something right. And it's because our member firms are not just doing right; they are doing extraordinary things each day. This is the story we tell during Roadshow events, the story we told at the Republican National Convention last week in Milwaukee, and it’s the story we will tell next month in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention. We look forward to sharing the details of our participation in that gathering with you later next month.