Vice President Kamala Harris’ 27 years as a criminal prosecution attorney in California could pose a challenge in appealing to moderate voters, reminiscent of the obstacles she faced in her 2020 presidential defeat, as Republicans and Democrats prepare to scrutinize her political record, which has drawn criticism from both sides of the aisle.
Republican strategists are preparing to step up their offensive against Harris as attention shifts to her after President Biden abruptly dropped his bid for a second Democratic term on Sunday.
Despite many Republicans calling for Biden to resign immediately, a House GOP strategist told Fox News Digital that “what’s more important over the next week or so is defining Kamala as a far-left liberal from San Francisco.”
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President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris (Getty Images)
“She defended the rioters during the Kenosha riots, which was very unpopular in the battleground state of Wisconsin. She needs to make sure voters remember the crazy things she said and the crazy things she wanted to do,” the strategist said.
Similarly, Harris’ tenure as California’s attorney general has come under fire from critics on the left, primarily for the hardline stance on criminal prosecutions and other criminal justice policies she promoted.
Harris faced intense criticism over her prosecutorial record during her 2020 presidential campaign, which began in January 2019. Opponents of aggressive criminal prosecution argue it disproportionately affects low-income families and minorities, further trapping them in the prison system.
One of the most criticized aspects of Harris’ record has been her handling of school truancy cases, after she supported a 2011 truancy law that allowed district attorneys to bring misdemeanor charges against parents if their children were chronically absent during the school year without a valid excuse.
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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Las Vegas on June 28, 2024. (Bizayev Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
In 2019, Molly Redden The Huffington Post reported In her article, “The Human Cost of Kamala Harris’ War on School Truancy,” she describes how anti-truancy programs have affected some families, including Cherry Peoples, an African-American mother who was arrested in April 2013 after her child missed 20 days of school.
Governor Harris later backed down on the truancy crackdown in a 2019 podcast, saying her “it was never my intention to criminalize parents” and that California’s law had “unintended consequences,” Politico reported at the time.
The New Democratic presidential candidate has also come under fire for her conflicting stance on the death penalty: she has defended California’s death penalty, which has been controversial among some progressive groups who oppose the death penalty.
She has since reversed her stance and publicly opposed the death penalty. During the 2020 Democratic presidential debate, Harris fired back at her primary opponent: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) She accused Harris of concealing crucial evidence “that would have freed an innocent man from death row” while she was attorney general.
During the debate, Gabbard said she was “deeply concerned” about Harris’ record.
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President Biden, former President Trump, and Vice President Kamala Harris (Getty Images)
“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.”
“I have always personally been opposed to the death penalty,” Harris replied. “That has never changed.”
She also faced accusations of being too tough on low-level drug offenders during her time as San Francisco’s district attorney and later as the state’s top cop. Liberal critics argued that her policies led to the mass incarceration of black men, rather than focusing on rehabilitation and criminal justice reform.
Meanwhile, some Democrats, in light of Trump’s recent trial, have framed the showdown between Harris and Trump as “prosecutor versus felon.”
Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York wrote on X Sunday, “November 5th: Prosecutors vs. Felons.”
The anti-Trump group known as the Lincoln Project also chimed in with a new ad endorsing Harris.
“As a tough prosecutor, Kamala Harris has always taken on men like Trump – rapists, con artists, fraudsters and criminals. She’s used to men like Trump, and she’s used to putting them in their place,” a narrator says in the ad.
Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton of Arizona also endorsed Harris on X.
“The contrasts in this race couldn’t be clearer: a prosecutor versus a convicted felon. A defender of fundamental American freedoms versus the man who has tried to take them away at every turn. Let’s get to work,” he wrote.
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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.
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Fox News Digital’s Kyle Morris contributed to this report.
