Former Bernie Sanders spokeswoman bemoans Biden selecting ‘top cop from California’ as running mate

Gray said many younger Democratic voters, especially within minority communities, are looking for “non-punitive, non-incarceral solutions to the kinds of economic problems” facing people of color.

Harris, the former attorney general of California, has come under scrutiny for a bevy of policies she introduced and implemented in the state during her time in the position.

One program punished parents of habitually truant school children with severe fines and jail time.

“I just think the whole concept of ‘progressive prosecutor’ is going to strike a lot of people as an oxymoron,” Garry South, a Democratic strategist, told the Los Angeles Times during Harris’s primary run.

But the Biden campaign says Harris’s legal background and skill at asking tough questions is the reason he chose her, arguing she is the ideal person to “prosecute the case against President Trump.”

“Kamala, as you all know is smart, she’s tough, she’s experienced, she’s a proven fighter for the backbone of this country, the middle class, for all those who are struggling to get into the middle class,” Biden said Wednesday in introducing Harris as his running mate. “Kamala knows how to govern. She knows how to make the hard calls. She’s ready to do this job on Day One, and we’re both ready to get to work rebuilding this nation and building it better.”

In her first public remarks since being named Biden’s pick, Harris attacked Trump, blaming him for deaths caused by the coronavirus pandemic and saying he was responsible for “plung[ing] us into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.”

“You know, she’s very bad on facts. She’s very weak on facts,” Trump responded at a news conference later on Wednesday. “I watched her. I watched her poll numbers go boom, boom, boom. Down to almost nothing.”

Sanders, who was Biden’s most formidable challenger in the late stages of the 2020 Democratic primary, pledged support for the Biden-Harris ticket.

“She understands what it takes to stand up for working people, fight for health care for all, and take down the most corrupt administration in history,” Sanders said. “Let’s get to work and win.”

Still, members of Sanders’s socialist base say Harris is not liberal enough for their appetite.

“It’s not clear to me hat the electoral value of this is when you contrast that, especially with the fact that younger voters in particular and swing voter care less enthusiastic about this campaign,” Gray said. “… In part, because they were looking for a kind of fundamental change in this campaign cycle — desire that was only exacerbated by the health crisis and economic crisis that we’re in now.”