00:00Would a Kamala Harris victory mean that we've been doing elections wrong for decades?
00:04Harris's entry into the presidential race in July after President Biden's departure left her with
00:08just a few months to campaign, as opposed to the years candidates usually spend through the primary
00:13and general cycles. Many other countries have much shorter election seasons — three months in Mexico
00:18and 25 days in the UK, according to PBS. And political science professor Brendan Doherty
00:23tells CNN that early American presidents found campaigning itself unseemly.
00:28But our system changed over time, most dramatically in 1968. That year, Eugene
00:32McCarthy got the most votes in the Democratic primary, but delegates at the notorious 68
00:37convention in Chicago nominated then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey instead. Humphrey
00:41went on to lose to Richard Nixon. After that, both parties instituted reforms, giving primary voters
00:46more of a say. And that required candidates to spend time and money building trust with the
00:51public, rather than just with party bosses. Decades later, a 2023 Pew Research Center poll
00:56found that 72% of Americans thought recent campaigns lasted too long. And UT Austin State
01:02Politics Chair Darren Shaw tells Business Insider that the process does a good job of identifying
01:07somebody who can put together a campaign and win primaries. Is that correlated with being a good
01:12commander-in-chief or leading the nation? I think the jury is still out on that. Kamala Harris's
01:16rise has been unprecedented and unique, but it could lead to a reconsideration of our system.
01:21For that to happen, though, she'd first have to win.
