Kamala Harris Update
““You know, essentially, is America ready for a woman and a woman of color to be president of the United States?” ”
Kamala Harris has officially dropped out of the 2020 Presidential race. Harris started as a top tier democratic candidate competing with the likes of Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren. However, Harris’ campaign suffered from severe mismanagement of campaign funds, which resulted in her falling behind in the polls. Harris ranked in second place among most Democrats for a large section of the summer and consistently ranked in the top 5 Democratic candidates in terms of fundraising. She came under serious fire from fellow Democrat Tulsi Gabbard after Gabbard criticized Harris for her record as a prosecutor in the state of California. After that, Harris’s polling started consistently declining, and she was never able to recover. When asked why she left the race, Harris attributed her loss to her race and gender saying, “You know, essentially, is America ready for a woman and a woman of color to be president of the United States?” Harris leaving the Democratic field does mean that all of the top candidates are now white (Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttiguig, Klobuchar, and Steyer). While many have criticized the American Public for choosing not to support a black woman, it should also be noted that the majority of the candidates polling above her had far more experience in Government then she did. Harris’s dropping out has also raised many concerns about the Democratic field’s ability to rally black voters and women, which could be crucial in winning the 2020 election. The Washington Post estimates that 4.4 million black voters that voted for Obama stayed home in the 2016 election and there is a growing concern amongst Democrats that the same thing could happen again in 2020.
By: Ben Butcher
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