Kamala Harris was the breakout star in the first round of 2020 Democratic debates. Two months later, she’s mired in fourth place, with iffy prospects of retaking the lead.
The California senator grew her name recognition big-time after her Jun. 30 tussle in Miami with Vice President Joe Biden, when she questioned him directly over his 1970s-era opposition to school busing and nostalgic references to segregationist senators with whom he served. Campaign donations poured in as media interview requests for Harris skyrocketed.
Now, though, she’s falling in the polls. A CNN poll taken just after the first debate found Harris trailing Joe Biden 17% to 22%. But a CNN poll released on Tuesday, conducted Aug. 15 to 18, found Biden had largely recovered. The former Delaware senator had 29%, while Harris dropped all the way down to 5%, tied for fourth place with South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
It’s not the first time Harris, 54, slumped in the race. Her January announcement in Oakland, California, won rave reviews, introducing the nation to the former California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney, who is the daughter of a Jamaican father and Tamil Indian mother.
Yet by the time the field of Democrats began to fill up and former Vice President Joe Biden announced his candidacy in late April, Harris had already been forgotten until she made herself known again at the first debate in Miami.
At the next round of debates, in Detroit, Harris found herself playing defense against one of the Democratic field’s bottom-tier candidates. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii questioned Harris’ prosecutorial record, giving voice to the “she’s a cop” theme voice by some far-left critics.
“Tulsi Gabbard’s questioning of Harris in the second debate exacerbated a sore spot for some voters, particularly African Americans, who are uncomfortable with her record as a prosecutor,” Basil Smikle former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party, told the Washington Examiner. “Harris didn’t spend as much time setting the record straight after that hit, as Biden did after she went after him the first debate. She has some time but will need to shine in other ways — perhaps through donations, or championing an issue when the Senate returns to work.”
Essentially, the health of Harris’s presidential campaign, since its late January launch in Oakland, looks similar to a heart rate chart of sharp peaks and valleys in the last seven months.
Although she became known as a tough-on-crime California attorney, she recently attempted to align herself with the criminal justice reform movement when she, as well as a primary rival, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, marked the five-year anniversary of the Ferguson, Missouri, deadly police shooting of Michael Brown.
Both claimed in tweets that Brown was “murdered” by the officer involved in the shooting, though a report released by President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice, stated otherwise and news outlets took both senators to task for the error.
Harris is also facing fallout over a major policy shift. She initially co-sponsored a “Medicare for all” bill, authored by fellow primary contender Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. But she officially reversed her stance and came out against the proposal early this week, when it showed to be unpopular with Americans concerned that their private insurance would be canceled.
However, some say Harris should not be dismissed from the pool of primary candidates at this point.
“I think that polling goes up and down and I think that we have light years before the election and I believe that the more American public is exposed to Kamala Harris the more they will like her,” Florida Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson, a supporter of Harris told the Washington Examiner. “Everywhere she goes, people like her. And she picks up support. So I think it has a lot to do with identity politics.”
