A week after announcing her own presidential candidacy following President Biden’s withdrawal, Vice President Harris is backing away from some of the far-left positions she previously promoted.
Harris pandered to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party to gain traction in the presidential primaries a few years ago, then suspended her campaign in December 2019, only to align herself with the new radical ideals pushed by the Democratic Party in the summer of 2020, just months after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the Black Lives Matter anti-police protests and riots that rocked the country.
In resurfaced footage that began airing in a campaign ad run by Republican Sen. David McCormick of Pennsylvania, Harris is seen on camera speaking out against fracking, saying she would “consider” abolishing ICE, calling extra police officers a “bad idea,” and discussing allowing felons to vote. Harris also says she supports a “mandatory buyback program” for guns and that private health insurance should be abolished, according to a New York Times summary of the ad.
On fracking, which is particularly important to the economy of Pennsylvania, a key battleground state in the 2024 presidential election, the Harris campaign shifted tack on Friday. A source from her reelection campaign told The Hill that she would not seek a ban on fracking if elected president.
This contrasts with what Harris told CNN during her 2020 presidential nomination campaign.
“There’s no question that I’m in favor of banning fracking,” Harris said at the time.
Harris maintains Biden is fit to remain in office despite more than 80 documented contacts with her over the past year
Harris speaks during the 2024 NCAA Championship Team Celebration on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on July 22, 2024. (Andrew Harnick/Getty Images)
Former president and Republican candidate Donald Trump told rallygoers in Minnesota on Saturday that Harris was opposed to fracking.
“Oh, that’s going to work in Pennsylvania, isn’t it?” Trump said.
“Pennsylvania, remember what I said? She doesn’t want fracking. She’s on tape. The great thing about modern technology is if you say something, you get in trouble if it’s bad.”
A Harris campaign official told The New York Times that campaign staff plan to paint Republicans who dig up Harris’s past statements about left-leaning views as exaggerating and lying about her record. The campaign also plans to highlight Harris’s work as a district attorney and attorney general in California and portray her as a candidate with deep ties to law enforcement, according to the Times.
Harris will speak at the American Teachers Union’s 88th National Convention in Houston, Texas on July 25, 2024. (Montinique Monroe/Getty Images)
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper withdraws from running as Kamala Harris’ running mate
in Approval hearing in November 2018Harris, who was a senator at the time, asked Ronald Vitiello, Trump’s nominee for director of ICE, whether he was aware of “perceptions” that there were similarities between ICE and the KKK.
Meanwhile, a Harris campaign official told The New York Times this week that Harris now supports the Biden administration’s budget request for increased funding for the Border Patrol, no longer opposes single-payer health care and supports Biden’s call for an assault weapons ban but opposes requiring private gun owners to sell those guns to the federal government.
When it comes to health insurance, Harris is no longer pushing for Medicare for All.
“Kamala Harris spent 20 years as a tough prosecutor who put violent criminals behind bars,” Harris campaign spokesman Brian Fallon told The New York Times. “Her years in law enforcement and her record in the Biden-Harris Administration refute Trump’s attempts to define her by lies.”
Harris addresses supporters during a campaign rally at West Allis Central High School in West Allis, Wisconsin, on July 23, 2024. (Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)
The Trump campaign emphasized on Monday that Harris said she was “open to discussions” about expanding the Supreme Court in 2019. But the Harris campaign issued a statement this week in support of Biden’s Supreme Court reform proposals on term limits for judges and ethics guidelines, which do not include adding justices to the nation’s highest court.
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As for videos of Harris espousing far-left views, “the archive is vast,” Brad Todd, a Republican strategist and ad creator who works with McCormick and other campaigns, told The New York Times. “We’re going to run out of time before we run out of video clips of Kamala Harris making wacky California liberal remarks. I’m not sure there’s much else in the rest of this campaign.”
