California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign is losing momentum, and fast.
Once held up by the media as the virtual heir to the nomination, Harris has dropped in the polls after a series of debate failures. The Democrat is falling behind stragglers like Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who shot past Harris in a new Iowa poll, and outsider candidate Andrew Yang, who is beating her in her home state of California, the Washington Examiner reported.
Harris falls in polls
Back in April, Harris entered the race amid much fanfare. Until June, she was widely seen — largely thanks to the media hype — as a top-tier candidate and a major threat to frontrunner Joe Biden. Those predictions held through the first Democratic debate in June, when Harris attacked Biden’s record on federal bussing for school integration. The media declared Harris the winner of the first debate, and she enjoyed a momentary surge — but now there are signs that the momentum is fading.
A shocking Emerson University poll from Harris’s home state of California found that she is in fifth place, behind fringe candidate Andrew Yang, the entrepreneur running an idiosyncratic campaign based on the promise of $1,000 a month for every American. The poll found Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) tied in the lead with 26 percent, followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) at 20 percent and Yang at 7 percent. Harris came in behind Yang with 6 percent.
Things aren’t looking much better for her in the early primary state of Iowa. According to a poll from the progressive group Focus on Rural America, Harris has dropped a whopping 13 percentage points in Iowa since July.
Harris surged to third in the poll with 18 percent after the buzz from her first debate, but she has since fallen to 5 percent — behind Klobuchar, who is polling at 8 percent in fifth place, Sanders at 9 percent, Pete Buttigieg at 12 percent, Warren at 23 percent, and Biden at 25 percent. The poll was taken after the third Democratic debate on September 12 and released Wednesday.
The sheer drop for Harris came after she suffered consecutive setbacks in the July and September debates. She took a major hit in the second debate in Michigan when Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) attacked her for locking up Californians on marijuana charges and then joking about smoking cannabis. Harris failed to recover her momentum in Houston last week.
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released this week told a similar story, placing Harris at 5 percent — an 8 percent drop from her 13 percent standing in July and well behind the top trio of Biden, Sanders, and Warren.
Inauthenticity dooms Harris campaign
Harris, who has spent more time courting wealthy donors than campaigning in Iowa, is now hoping she can recover some momentum with a campaign blitz in the state, but it may be too late. Wealthy donors are starting to have their doubts, according to the Wall Street Journal. With the Iowa caucuses in just a few months, Harris is in a tough position.
All it took for the Harris bubble to burst, apparently, was a little scrutiny. Time in the spotlight has revealed a fundamental problem with her campaign: like Hillary Clinton, Harris is inauthentic. She comes across as grating and entitled, and she has no consistent policy plans.
Why does Kamala Harris want to be president? She has not been able to answer this question, and not surprisingly, voters are losing interest. The Democrat’s flip-flops on Medicare for All, bussing (the very issue she attacked Biden for), and other issues reveal a lack of conviction and authenticity that is deeply unappealing. Contrast Harris’s muddled message with that of Yang, who, despite a lack of name recognition, at least knows where he stands on the issues. Tucker Carlson said it best:
Whatever you think of Yang’s ideas, Andrew Yang is smart. He is original. He is totally genuine. Harris is the opposite. She is a soulless, corporate shill who hasn’t uttered a single authentic word since entering public life. Harris embodies everything that is grating and unlikable about neoliberals — mindless children of privilege who sneer at those below them for not obeying. It turns out even a lot of faithful Democratic voters find the whole thing totally unbearable — because it is unbearable. I mean, really.
Now, the media seems to be losing interest in Harris as Warren draws large crowds and surges in the polls to become the new presumptive nominee. With Harris in free-fall, Sanders losing the progressive constituency to Warren, and Biden stumbling over his shoelaces, “Pocahontas” may well be the on the path to the nomination.
No comments: