What Kamala Harris Learned From a Bruising 2020 Primary
"The vice president has a rare opportunity to reintroduce herself to the American public as a presidential candidate, armed with lessons from the first time.
Astead W. Herndon, the host of the Times politics podcast “The Run-Up,” covered Kamala Harris’s 2020 Democratic primary campaign.
The best day of Kamala Harris’s 2020 presidential campaign was its first.
Before she was tripped up by CNN town halls, forced to respond to a torrent of policy proposals put forth by Senator Elizabeth Warren, savaged by Representative Tulsi Gabbard and sandwiched between the moderation of Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, she drew 20,000 people to a rally in her native Oakland, Calif., that showed hints of the unifying Democratic figure she now promises to be.
In that speech, delivered in January 2019, Ms. Harris owned her record as a prosecutor, told personal stories about the impact of her family and multicultural upbringing, and struck fear in the heart of her Democratic rivals. The argument for her candidacy at the time was similar to the arguments that voters and political analysts are making in her favor right now. Mr. Biden had the experience, Ms. Warren had the policy, and Senator Bernie Sanders had the progressive appeal — but Ms. Harris was the candidate who could theoretically do all the above. It did not matter that in that crowded primary contest, few voters said she was their first choice. It mattered that she was nearly everyone’s second or third.
These days, that broad appeal is becoming the calling card of Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign, around which Democrats quickly coalesced after President Biden’s sudden exit from the race.
Now, with less than 100 days to go until Election Day, Ms. Harris has a rare opportunity to reintroduce herself to the American public. More than five years later, she is shaping up to be a different type of candidate this time — a Kamala Harris who sounds more like the one at that introductory speech in Oakland than the inconsistent candidate she proved to be. Here are four key ways the Kamala Harris of 2024 is different from, and informed by, the Kamala Harris of 2019.
She got comfortable with her prosecutor past
Back in 2019, in an open Democratic primary field where progressive candidates and activist groups exerted substantial power, Ms. Harris shied away from her record as a prosecutor and the attorney general of California. For months, Ms. Harris failed to aggressively push back on criticism of her record and the social media slogan #KamalaIsACop, and she did not release a policy position on the issue until long after her top Democratic rivals did.
The effect of this inaction was twofold. It frustrated Ms. Harris’s advisers, who wondered why the proud career prosecutor was suddenly lacking confidence. And it confused the people who might have supported her.
On the trail in 2019, from Iowa to South Carolina, eager early-state voters loved hearing Ms. Harris tell stories about growing up in the Bay Area and locking up bad guys in order to keep Californians safe. But she didn’t clearly connect those stories with policy, so voters didn’t connect with her.
Already, the Harris 2024 campaign has demonstrated that it does not intend to make the same mistake. Last week, in Ms. Harris’s first address to her campaign staff in Wilmington, Del., her history as a prosecutor was front and center, a core part of the contrast she is drawing with former President Donald J. Trump, who is now a felon.
“I took on perpetrators of all kinds,” Ms. Harris said. “Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”
The words invoked the sentiment that she laid out in her Oakland kickoff speech, but later let fade from her pitch: “You see, in our system of justice, we believe that a harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us. That’s why when we file a case, it’s not filed in the name of the victim. It reads: ‘the people.’”
Her abortion position stands out
In the 2020 Democratic primary, Ms. Harris was one of several candidates who criticized restrictive state abortion laws and pushed to repeal the Hyde Amendment. Her support for abortion rights did not distinguish her in that crowded field.
Now, after Roe v. Wade was overturned, and in an entirely different campaign landscape, abortion access is a signature topic for her.
As vice president, Ms. Harris has been the administration’s strongest voice on the issue, becoming a key liaison between the White House and abortion rights groups.
Last year, to underscore the issue’s importance, Ms. Harris became the first sitting vice president to visit an active abortion provider, when she toured a Planned Parenthood in Minnesota.
Politically, the issue has also given Ms. Harris a way to repair relationships with progressive groups and Democratic activist organizations that were damaged after her 2020 presidential run. Over time, the groups have come to trust Ms. Harris as an unflinching ally — and a contrast with President Biden, who had been less comfortable making abortion rights a central part of his message.
In addition to the explicit discussion of abortion rights in her stump speech, expect Ms. Harris to make “freedom” a core part of her campaign’s message, a subtle nod to the “reproductive freedom” message that Democrats have come to embrace.
It’s present even in her campaign song: “Freedom” by BeyoncĂ©, featuring Kendrick Lamar.
She is willing to reject the left
Another effect of Ms. Harris’s time as Mr. Biden’s vice president is that she has created more distance between her and the party’s progressive wing.
Outside of the issue of abortion access, on which the vice president has forged close relationships with the activist left, the Kamala Harris of the 2020 primary — who took great pains to not upset the slices of the party most associated with Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren — is no more.
Ms. Harris has reversed several policy positions from her time in the 2020 presidential race, making clear that she no longer supports a single-payer, “Medicare for All”-style health insurance system; a fracking ban; or mandatory gun buybacks.
Ms. Harris’s newfound willingness to keep the progressive wing at arm’s length will be critical as Republicans gear up to use her previous policy statements against her.
In one interview in June 2020, amid global protests for racial justice, Ms. Harris said she believed that the country should “redirect resources” from police departments. Conservatives have used this to characterize Ms. Harris as anti-police, even though she never embraced the broader “defund the police” movement.
“I don’t believe we should defund the police,” she told me in an interview in August 2023. Criminal justice policy, she said, should be motivated by what actually works — and what is worth spending money on. “If we are thinking that way,” she added, “then let’s figure out what we are doing around things like prevention, because it’s actually cheaper than reaction after it occurs.”
It’s better to have the party on your side
Maybe the biggest change from Ms. Harris’s 2020 presidential race is within her own party: Democrats seem to like her much more now.
As recently as 10 months ago, in interviews for an in-depth article about Ms. Harris for The New York Times Magazine, Democrats in Washington were all too willing to point out her flaws, often with an eye toward boosting a different Democrat in the 2028 presidential primary.
A top consultant pointed out the disconnect between political talent and expectations. One major donor said there was agreement among the party’s heavy hitters that having Ms. Harris as the vice president wasn’t ideal. And back then, Ms. Harris was largely absent from the 2028 jockeying that was already taking place among prospective candidates and donors.
But with Mr. Biden now out of the way, and the party fully unified behind Ms. Harris’s candidacy, those who had long argued that she was undervalued will get their chance to prove it.
No matter what happened in 2019, Ms. Harris currently finds herself in an ideal electoral situation: a short race against a polarizing opponent, and with the backing of many small-dollar donors, celebrities and elected officials within her party.
It’s now just up to the candidate."
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