Vice President Kamala Harris said on Sunday that she will run to succeed her octogenarian boss after President Joe Biden bowed out of the presidential race.
And so, as she endeavors to unburden herself by what has been, a refresher on Vice President Kamala Harris: Here at the Free Beacon, we've been chronicling her "Veep Thoughts" since early 2022. Watch the latest volume here.
The last time Harris sought the Democratic Party's presidential nomination things didn't go quite as she had planned. Politico characterized the campaign as one with "no discipline, no plan, no strategy." Harris launched her campaign in January 2019 and dropped out by the end of the year, before her home state of California voted in the primary. She suffered a number of self-inflicted setbacks along the way.
• In January 2019, shortly after entering the race, Harris called to eliminate private health insurance. The Free Beacon's founding editor, Matthew Continetti, predicted that would haunt her. When that position prompted criticism, she released a Medicare for All plan that preserved a role for private companies. Biden's campaign attacked the flip-flop, arguing that Harris took a "have-it-every-which-way approach" and refused "to be straight with the American middle class."
• Biden and Harris sparred again in a June 2019 debate, when Harris attacked Biden's tight relationship with segregationists. "I do not believe you are a racist," Harris told Biden. "It was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations on the segregation of race in this country." The stunt backfired—Biden gained support with black voters and Harris steadily dropped in the polls.
• Harris in a February 2019 interview admitted to using marijuana and called for the drug's legalization. As California's attorney general, though, she packed California's prisons with pot peddlers, sending at least 1,560 to state prison, the Free Beacon reported.
• Armed with that report, then-primary rival Tulsi Gabbard hounded Harris during an August 2019 debate, saying the then-California senator "put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana." Harris dismissed the attack, calling herself a "top-tier candidate" who was under fire from someone at "zero or 1 percent" support.
• Just months after that exchange, in November 2019, Harris found herself tied with Gabbard at 3 percent support among likely Democratic voters in Iowa. She took the time to attack Gabbard during her last debate before dropping out.
• Harris's campaign was dismissed by those closest to her. The late Dianne Feinstein, Harris's longtime political ally and senior colleague in the Senate, endorsed Biden in the primary and suggested Harris wasn't suited for the presidency. "I love Kamala," Feinstein said at the time. "But this is a different kind of thing."
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