Senator Kamala Harris says she’ll make a final decision about running for president when she’s home in Los Angeles during the holidays. She already appeared to be moving to the front of the thick Democratic pack this fall, based on her cross-examinations of Brett Kavanaugh and Jeff Sessions. The fact that she is African-American, female, and relatively youthful can only benefit her during an election cycle certain to feature powerful generational currents—particularly as a foil to Donald Trump, an old, white race-baiter. Yet if Harris runs in 2020, she will need to harness the complicated currents of identity politics, while not being defined by them.

Harris’s brand, to this point in her political career, has been grounded largely in competence and prosecutorial rigor—her central identity has been her manifest talent. She has smartly started to broaden that image by positioning herself as an advocate for the truth—in contrast to, say, Trump, a pathological liar. It is no accident that Harris’s new book, due out in January, is titled The Truths We Hold.

Harris is poised to tap into some powerful Democratic demographic truths. Black women have been the party’s most reliable voters; women of all colors came out in record numbers to support Democrats in the midterms. Harris is the daughter of an Indian immigrant mother and a Jamaican immigrant father, and South Carolina, Texas, and California, all with substantial non-white populations, hold primaries early in the 2020 season. It doesn’t hurt that Barack Obama already shattered one half of the cultural barrier when he was elected president in 2008. “That will make it easier for black Democrats, in some regards,” the Rev. Al Sharpton says. “Pre-Obama, we had to convince people that you could win as a black candidate. Now it’s: ‘Which black or white or Latino can win?’ Not: ‘Can a black win?’”

The flip side is that the racial backlash to Obama helped propel Trump to victory in 2016, and that Trump has done nothing but stoke racial polarization ever since. Some Democrats claim that nominating a person of color in 2020 would be a gift to Trump, motivating his base to turn out in the swing states that will determine who wins the electoral college. “They will make that case, because that’s what the Democratic establishment does. And that argument is dumb as dirt,” says Cornell Belcher, a pollster who worked on both of Obama’s runs. “These are the same geniuses who didn’t think that Stacey Abrams should be the nominee for governor in Georgia. The only reason that contest was competitive was because Abrams ran, and not as a middle-of-the road, conventional white candidate. And Obama’s racial breakthrough in 2008 wasn’t what most people thought it was. He got the same 43 percent of the white vote that John Kerry got and lost with in 2004. What was different was the number of black voters, and Latino voters, and young people.”

Even in defeat, Abrams, along with Andrew Gillum in Florida, both fantastically talented politicians, showed how potent the changed electorate can be. Jeremy Bird, who ran the Obama campaign’s field operation in 2012, believes trying to finesse the racial context in 2020 would be both cowardly and pointless. “It would be a real disservice to the country for Democrats to run on this false notion that we have to nominate a white candidate because Donald Trump is racist,” Bird says. “He’s still going to be racist if it’s a white nominee. You saw that in 2016.” Harris has anticipated attempts to diminish her by assigning her to narrow lanes. “I have a problem, guys, with that phrase ‘identity politics.’ Because let’s be clear: when people say that, it’s a pejorative,” she told the Netroots Nation conference in August. “I know that there are powerful voices right now that are trying to sow hate and division among us, but when it comes to issues that matter the most, I do not believe we are a divided country.”

Successfully running for president means moving hearts as well as minds, which some Democrats cite as their chief concern about Harris. One reason Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 was that she could not re-create the Obama coalition of black, Latino, and progressive white voters—in electoral-college numbers, sure, but also in voter excitement. But here, again, there are stylistic conundrums, based on the kinds of sexist double standards that bedeviled Clinton. “Have you seen her speak?” a (male) Democratic strategist says of Harris. “It feels very Hillary-like.”

Buffy Wicks has a rare perspective on political sexism: she was a senior Obama campaign operative, and then, in November, won a seat in the California State Assembly. “Voters want to see a little bit of vulnerability, and women candidates need to thread the needle on this,” Wicks says. “Kamala is going to have to figure out how she shows that softer side. It’s more difficult for women candidates, and as a former district attorney, it’s not in her normal playbook.”

Harris’s Senate communications director, Lily Adams, pushes back on that view of her boss. “She came up through San Francisco city politics, and that is as retail as retail gets. You’re walking those hills, knocking on doors,” Adams says. “And when she was a prosecutor dealing with victims of crimes, she dealt with very delicate matters. She understands connecting with people.”

Still, Harris’s team is wary of Beto O’Rourke’s possible entry into the field—because O’Rourke could cut into Harris’s appeal to white progressives, and because he has a flair for the emotional that could contrast with Harris’s coolness. “Like Obama, Beto knows exactly who he is,” says Jim Messina, the campaign manager for Obama’s 2012 re-election. “He is willing to be honest in a non-political way. His losing speech where he said ‘fuck’ was one of the coolest things I’ve seen, because it was just a normal human response.” O’Rourke understands how to sell Obaman uplift; his being white, though, could cut both ways in Democratic primaries.

On Wednesday morning, Harris delivered a speech—about the crisis of high mortality rates among black mothers and children—that combined wonkiness, racial bonding, and empathy. She talked about legislation, but also told a compelling, graphic story about her mother’s experiences as a breast-cancer researcher. The event had been in the works for months, but the timing turned out to be fascinating: Harris’s appearance came two days after news broke that O’Rourke is sounding out Sharpton. “I like what I see of Beto, but I need to see a lot more,” the reverend tells me, adding that he’ll be meeting with O’Rourke in the next several weeks. “Kamala connects with black-church audiences. Cory Booker, too. And I’ll tell you who surprised me: Liz Warren. She rocked my organization’s convention like she was taking Baptist preacher lessons.” When it comes to being black and female, though, Harris is the only Dem presidential aspirant who doesn’t need any validators.

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