Karen Miller has watched with disgust as the talks about President Joe Biden’s replacement have focused on possibilities other than Vice President Kamala Harris.

With Biden announcing Sunday he’s ending his reelection campaign and endorsing Harris, Miller predicts a political revolt — with Black women withdrawing their support “en masse” — if the rest of the party does not fall in line.

“Kamala Harris is to the Democratic Party what Sojourner Truth was to women’s suffrage,” said Miller, the state’s only Black woman political fundraiser. “It is blatantly disrespectful and dishonest to the voting bloc whose vote and support have time and again brought back the party from life support to overlook Kamala Harris as president.

“The party can test it at their own peril.”

If elected, Harris would be the first woman and first person of Black and Asian descent to serve as president. “My intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said in a statement Sunday.

As calls have grown for Biden to step aside — particularly in the weeks after his disastrous debate against Donald Trump — speculation has brewed over which Democrat could replace him. Party insiders and polls boosted names including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.

Harris has received a mixed reception from Black voters over the years. A June survey of more than 200,000 Black Americans found Harris had a 71% approval rating, and other polls have shown her as more popular than Biden with Black voters, a reversal from four years earlier when the two ran against each other for president.

Polls such as May’s New York Times/Siena College battleground survey have found Trump’s support among Black voters, especially Black men, growing at Biden’s expense.

But Black Marylanders — particularly Black women — were miffed that Harris was not automatically at the top of the list as Biden’s possible successor. Harris, after all, has been Biden’s vice president and part of the only ticket to defeat Trump.

Harris has the job experience, they note. She has ties to Black American culture as a graduate of Howard University and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., the oldest historically Black sorority in the country. And, they pointed out, Black women vote for Democrats.

“There is no other candidate who I believe the Democrats could choose,” said Nykidra “Nyki” Robinson, founder of Black Girls Vote. “Time and time again, Black women are counted out. But we are counting her in. With all due respect, Kamala Harris is now the party’s horse.”

Black women are the most loyal voters to the Democratic Party — especially when it comes to voting for president, when their numbers overwhelmingly have sided with Democrats. From 1952 to 2016, just twice have a majority of white women voted for the Democratic presidential candidate, Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton.

Black women voters helped lift Biden to the presidency and flipped two Senate seats in Georgia in 2020 that shifted power to Democrats.

In Maryland, one of the most diverse states in the country, Black women represent 16% of all people of voting age, according to a Banner analysis.

“Any public discussions about potentially replacing the vice president with another top Democrat in Biden’s absence highlights how often Black women are overlooked,” said Glynda C. Carr, president and CEO of Higher Heights for America PAC, an organization that supports Black women running for office. “If you want Black women to organize our houses, blocks, churches and sororities, we’ve got to stand by our leadership.”

Carr said her organization has “large-scale activities” planned at the Democratic National Convention to support Harris, in addition to other efforts in the following months.

Maryland has a unique relationship with Harris.

During her 2020 presidential run, Harris chose Baltimore as her campaign’s home base. Some staff members have remained in the Baltimore area since then. Harris also has a number of relationships with Maryland’s most recognizable Black elected figures, from former State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby saying that Harris was a mentor to Harris personally helping campaign for Angela Alsobrooks for the Senate.

Del. Stephanie Smith, chair of the Baltimore delegation representing District 45, said she plans to support Harris at the convention next month in Chicago.

“Vice President Kamala Harris is the only person in our nation who was part of a ticket that successfully beat Trump and has been vetted at the highest levels to lead our nation. She’s in the best position to leverage Biden’s campaign infrastructure and has developed important relationships with our international allies,” Smith said, unhappy that some “crapped” on Biden and his lengthy accomplishments. “We have no more time to quibble over the who. Kamala Harris will be the next president.”

Tia Hopkins — who along with Antonio Bowens became the state’s first openly nonbinary candidates elected to the Democratic Central Committee in 2022 — said she will support Harris at the DNC.

Hopkins points to the hypocrisy over the opposition to Harris.

“It’s because she’s Black,” Hopkins said, adding that Harris being a former prosecutor should also appeal to Republicans. “Being Black and being tough on crime, they don’t care. They see her as ‘other.’ They see her as different.”

Del. Jeffrie Long, an at-large delegate to the DNC, said he hoped Democrats wouldn’t start questioning Harris’ electability.

“I would hope there would not be any kind of pseudo liberals that are camouflaging and masking behind ‘is she electable?’ because they’re afraid to support a Black woman,” Long said, noting Black women’s support of the party.

State Sen. Jill P. Carter said Harris has been “an integral part of the administration’s accomplishments and successes. She has been involved in high-level decisions, foreign policy and national security issues. There is currently no one as prepared, qualified or deserving.

“Black women decide elections in swing states,“ said Carter, who is the Baltimore City Senate Delegation Chair. “For leading Democrats to bypass Harris on some speculation that she can’t win is 1950s-level racist and sexist thinking. With the same support they’ve handily given Joe Biden, she could absolutely win.”

Harris picked up an endorsement Sunday night from six members of Maryland’s Legislative Black Caucus members who are also DNC delegates, including Smith and Long.

Although he does not think Harris has been overlooked, Michael K. Fauntroy, director of the Race, Politics, and Policy Center in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, conceded that “can certainly be the case.”

He added: “It is an open question if she can win.”

Harris will have to battle the same misogyny that hurt Hillary Clinton in 2016 and is still present in our society, Fauntroy said.

“Add to that the obvious racism, and I can see why some would doubt she can do it. It’s a fair concern. However, if she is bypassed, then a critical number of women, especially Black women, will stay home in November, so whomever Dems chose would lose,” Fauntroy added.

Baltimore Banner reporter Pamela Wood contributed to this article.