Kamala Harris is surging in early 2020 primary election polls after her performance during the first Democratic National Committee debate series in Miami.

The first-term senator for California, 54, was languishing in fifth place before 20 candidates vying for the right to challenge President Trump next year walked out onto the debate stage last week, according to public opinion research. But after her provocative confrontation with Joe Biden over his opposition to busing, a policy aimed at encouraging integration after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, and his positive recollections of working with segregationists in the Senate during the 1970s, a CNN poll released Monday ranks her second behind the former vice president, leapfrogging over rivals Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and Elizabeth Warren.