On January 20, 2019, Senator Kamala Harris entered the race for president. She had a huge campaign rally in Oakland with 20k+ attendees, which was much larger than a lot of the major candidates. She had a great start. On December 4th, she suspended her campaign due to lack of funds to continue.
Kamala Harris was seen as the next Obama. She was the first elected official to campaign for him in Iowa in 2007. Hillary Clinton’s donors groomed her right after her historic Senate race win in 2016. She was a District Attorney, Attorney General, and a Senator in California. She had the makings of a great presidential candidate. So what happened you ask?
4 days before she entered the race, the NYT wrote a hit piece on her titled, “Kamala Harris Was Not a Progressive Prosecutor” – that was the beginning of the end. From there, she never received adequate press coverage with the exception of any negativity that was going on in her campaign. Even her much-lauded debate performance in November received little coverage. AM Joy did a panel on why Kamala wasn’t receiving the media coverage she deserved. (you know there is a problem when the media says you aren’t receiving enough coverage). Her poll numbers were low due to several factors such as name recognition, no media coverage, and her reputation as a “cop who locked Black people up.”
What I have found is that most people wrote her off from the beginning due to the fact that she was a DA. Without giving her a fair chance or actually reviewing her record, she was doomed from the jump. Amy Klobuchar was a DA too with a far more troubling record. Joe Biden wrote the crime bill and Bernie voted for it. Did they receive any negative coverage for it? NO.
Many will say her campaign was flawed. But I am here today to tell you that EVERY CAMPAIGN IS FLAWED. I believe with Trump in office and the media pushing this white savior complex since 2016, no woman or person of color will be able to win this race.
Black people have overwhelmingly supported Joe Biden due to the fact that he markets himself as the only one who can beat Trump and he was Obama’s VP. In 2016, the fear of Trump did not win us an election and it will be the same in 2020. The treatment of Kamala Harris by Black people has by far been the worst I’ve ever seen of any candidate. Even after she dropped out, Black social media continued to drag her. They said she wasn’t the one, but maybe she would be a great AG or VP. If you criticized her record as AG of California… why would you want her to be AG for the entire country? If she isn’t good enough to be President… why is she good enough to be VP? I believe Black people have always made it harder for other Black people to succeed.
The day after she dropped out, campaign vultures began to swarm around Kamala’s supporters and donors. Elizabeth Warren even created an ad with a picture of her and Kamala stating that Kamala was forced out of the race due to low funding and billionaires got to stay in the race and if she was president she would fix that problem. That is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in my life. She used the demise of a Black woman to boost her own candidacy and gain her followers. That’s how America treats Black women… uses them up and throws them away.
I was deeply invested in the Kamala Harris campaign for many reasons. The main reason was because I believed in her ability to win and get things done. I believed she would have dragged Donald Trump across the debate stage and trounced him in an election. I believed in her vision for America – to uplift people instead of put them down and to speak truth. When she was on the debate stage, she was the only candidate that would bring up issues that directly related to Black people. That will now be gone forever as there are no Black candidates able to qualify for the debates. Her impact was felt as you have seen in the days following her announcement to drop out.
She has received more media coverage in the days following her exit from the race then she ever has. It’s a sad state of affairs.
Similar Read: The Demise of Kamala Harris – the Good, the Bad, and What’s Next
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I do think Black voters were too hard on her, but maybe it’s because they expected better from their own? And while I agree that they were too hard on her, I don’t think that was the main reason for her exiting the race.