Sen. Kamala Harris’s stunning collapse from being a leading Democratic presidential candidate to dropping out before Iowa is a lesson in what happens when a candidate tries to consciously run as a consensus choice rather than on a clear vision.
Going into the Democratic nomination battle, Harris was actually viewed by many insiders as the one most likely to be the nominee. In addition to her intelligence and political talents, on paper, the thinking was that her status as both a female and a person of color could appeal to multiple key demographics. She had a background as a prosecutor and as a traditional pragmatic liberal that would satisfy the establishment, but also had embraced policies (such as socialized health insurance) to make her more acceptable to the Left than Joe Biden. As a bonus, many analysts projected she would benefit from her home state of California — the biggest delegate prize — having moved up its primary. When she mauled Biden in the first debate over school busing and surged in polls in July, it affirmed these predictions. And yet, it’s been downhill ever since.
