This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

I think it's fair to say there are no safe predictions to make in this election.

That is very clear.

But we're talking on the program today about Kamala Harris, who we've got to presume, at least for the moment, is the Democratic nominee.

Two of our staff writers got together to talk about Harris's candidacy and in particular the question of race

16 years after Barack Obama won the presidency does race still matter or better put

how does it matter in a presidential election.

Vincent Cunningham and Doreen San Felix are both critics at the New Yorker.

Vincent also wrote the book Great Expectations, a novel based on his experience working for the

Obama campaign.

They spoke with Tyler Foggett, an editor at the New Yorker, and one of the hosts of our

podcasts, The political scene.

Well, you know, I think that most times when people

bring Kamala Harris and Barack Obama

into the same conversation,

they are kind of mistaken, right?

That is just this kind of wishcasting.

But what they do have in common is a black father who is not from America.

And this brings all kinds of strange things into being

and they both in creating a black American identity, and trying to curate like to sort of

And I shouldn't say trying to I don't know what the sort of level of intention was but the same way that Barack Obama sort of

...