Amid growing calls to replace President Biden in the 2024 presidential election, some lawmakers and liberal commentators believe Vice President Kamala Harris has the power to challenge former President Donald Trump in November, despite taking questionable positions during the 2020 presidential campaign.
“Let’s be realistic, if you’re going to be talking about who the next candidate is, if you’re not going to put Vice President Kamala Harris’ name first, then bend the rules to accommodate someone other than her and tell me how you’re going to engage black voters,” political strategist Basil Smick said during a recent appearance on MSNBC’s “MSNBC Report.”
But Harris’ potential replacement for Biden raises questions about how successful she would be in a general election showdown with Trump, who Biden has suggested is “determined to destroy American democracy.”
During the 2020 presidential campaign, which began in January 2019, Harris faced intense criticism and scrutiny over her record as a prosecutor and California’s attorney general.
There is growing interest among House Democrats in Kamala as a possible replacement for Biden.
Vice President Kamala Harris spoke on the campus of the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland on June 24. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Lara Bazelon, an associate professor of law at the University of San Francisco, suggested at the time that efforts to portray Harris as a “progressive prosecutor” were inconsistent with her actions as San Francisco’s district attorney and California’s attorney general.
“Progressives repeatedly urged Harris to embrace criminal justice reform as district attorney and then attorney general, but she either opposed or remained silent,” Bazelon wrote in The New York Times during the launch of Harris’ 2020 campaign.
“Most troublingly, Ms. Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold a wrongful conviction that was obtained through official misconduct, including evidence tampering, false testimony and the concealment of key information by prosecutors,” she added.
Bazelon also cited multiple instances when the then-Democratic senator from California did not embrace criminal justice reform, either by opposing it or refusing to offer his opinion on it.
Harris’ record as a prosecutor did not resonate with many voters in her party, but it also drew attention during the July 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate.
During the debate, then-presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, sharply criticized Harris, saying she had “deep concerns” about her record.
“Senator Harris is proud of her record as a prosecutor and has said she would be a prosecutor president, but I have deep concerns about that record,” Gabbard, now an independent, said at the time. “The list goes on and on, but she sent over 1,500 people to prison for marijuana violations and then laughed when asked if she’d ever smoked marijuana.”
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Gabbard added, “She suppressed evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until a court forced her to do so. She kept people in prison past their sentences to use as cheap labor for the state of California. And she fought to preserve a cash bail system that impacts the poor the worst.”
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris stand on the Truman Balcony at the White House in Washington, DC on Thursday. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Harris defended her record as attorney general, saying she was “proud of the work I did” and that in her time she “delivered significant reform to the criminal justice system in a state of 40 million people that has become a national model for the work that needs to be done going forward.”
Responding to Harris, Gabbard said: “Senator Harris, at the end of the day, you were in a position to make a difference and impact these people’s lives and you didn’t.”
For Democrats, if the hypothetical scenario of Harris replacing Biden comes true, it is unclear how her previous positions – some of which were unpopular among party members – will impact the election.
Harris drew public attention to her health insurance plan during the 2020 campaign, when she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that it would remove Americans from private health insurance provided by their employers.
Harris supported bans on fracking and plastic straws, among many other positions she took during the campaign that ended in December 2019. She also said that if elected president, she would “eliminate the filibuster to pass the Green New Deal,” and even claimed to implement a “carbon tax.”
The Biden campaign has said that if Biden were to pull out due to upset by a major donor, Biden’s fundraising dollars would go to Kamala Harris.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, Harris claimed she would “eliminate the filibuster to pass the Green New Deal” and impose a “carbon tax” if elected. (AP Photo/Molly Gash)
During the campaign, Harris Tax cuts “Corporate tax rates must be raised,” a bill proposed during President Trump’s presidency.
Additionally, Harris said during the campaign that estate taxes “need to be raised.”
While many prominent Democrats have kept their voices low since their disastrous performance in last week’s presidential debate, several House Democrats have voiced their support for Harris to lead the party in the presidential race.
“If the president decides this is not the way forward, we have to act quickly. There is no time for a primary. That time has passed,” Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pennsylvania), a member of the House’s progressive “squad,” said in a recent radio interview. “The vice president is the obvious choice. She’s right up there.”
Rep. Jim Clyburn, D.C., similarly told MSNBC Reports recently, “I want this race to remain a Biden-Harris campaign. The party should not marginalize Harris in any way. Whether she’s in second place or first, we should do everything we can to back her up.”
The potential move also has the backing of Tim Ryan, a former Democratic congressman from Ohio who challenged Biden for the 2020 presidential nomination. A recent Newsweek op-ed by Ryan was headlined, “Kamala Harris Should Be the Democratic Nominee for President in 2024.”
President Biden arrived for a press conference at the White House in Washington, DC on Monday. (Andrew Harnick/Getty Images)
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Biden told supporters on Independence Day that he had no plans to withdraw from the election, despite continued struggles and gaffes at unscheduled events.
The Democratic Party plans to formally nominate its presidential and vice presidential candidates at the Democratic National Convention to be held in Chicago from August 19 to 22 next month.
