Is Kamala Harris America’s worst politician?
Kamala Harris really doesn’t know what she is doing.
From her shaky public re-emergence to her nonsensical flirtation with running for California governor to her odd first moves for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, Harris and her team look like a bunch of bush-leaguers trying to stay in the majors.
First off, let’s call her new book what it is — her first step to run for president. The former VP might change her mind, but for now she is unofficially running. And this book is not “an unfiltered look” but a cautiously contrived campaign ad. Unfortunately for Harris, the book shows how weak she and her team are.
How she deals with the rapidly diminishing Joe Biden shows her timidity and over-calculating nature. Caught between Democrats furious with the former president’s behavior, Biden loyalists protecting their legacy, humiliated Biden defenders who want to change the subject and Harris’s unwillingness to admit she was treated worse than Selina Meyer in “Veep,” Harris tries to navigate a middle ground that doesn’t actually exist.
Her claims that Biden was both focused and reckless do not add up. It makes her look ridiculous and provokes the Biden apologists. She would be better off taking a stand — and that stand is that the old fool Biden and his sycophants sunk her and the Democrats. This theme of prevarication and inhibition permeates the political strategy contained in the book.
Confusingly, Team Harris decided this book was the right platform to attack her potential 2028 opponents. USA Today dinged Harris for criticizing others in the Democratic Party, apparently not realizing that’s how you handle potential opposition. What America’s most colorful newspaper got wrong was not her ill-advised attacks — it was how weak those attacks are.
Harris said just enough to anger her opponents, but not enough to cause any real damage. Plus, she threw darts rather indiscriminately instead of focusing on a short-list of soft targets. And her one serious attack on Pete Buttigieg was a huge blunder.
It is clear to me that Harris’s claim — essentially that Buttigieg on a ticket with her was one oppressed class too far for the public — is an attempt to wield Democratic identity politics against Buttigieg. The not-subtle-at-all challenge to Democrats is that winning means picking just one identity politics candidate, and “Black woman” is better than “gay man.” But that’s the kind of thing best gossiped about behind closed doors or pushed out through surrogates, not published under her name.
Harris and her team had two options for her big coming out party: either present her vision for the future or settle some scores, putting her opponents on the defensive. Instead, this timorously constructed treatise looks like a book-by-committee — and that committee is terrible at messaging.
Harris should be the clear front-runner for the 2028 Democratic nomination. Tens of millions of Democrats just voted for her, and she ran a close race despite being dragged down by the semi-sentient Joe Biden. She ticks multiple identity boxes and has experience on the national stage in a way that nobody else does.
But right now she’s no clear front-runner. In fact, it seems like the entirety of the Democratic political and media establishment can’t get away from her fast enough. And her polling, while decent, is not great.
According to an August YouGov poll, Harris still polls well with Democrats and liberals, despite her fumbling and the contempt of the D.C. cognoscenti. Her approval is 84 percent against 14 percent disapprove for Democrats and 82 percent versus 15 percent for liberals. That compares favorably with Bernie Sanders — the most popular “Democrat” in America. He polls 5 points higher than Harris with liberals, but 3 points lower with Democrats. Gavin Newsom does not poll better; YouGov puts Newsom at just 61 percent approve against 13 percent disapprove with Democrats and 60 percent to 17 percent with liberals.
But those numbers look like basic Democratic voter aversion to Donald Trump and subsequent reflexive approval of any Democrat. When Harris is pitted against other Democrats eyeing a 2028 run, her performance is distinctly underwhelming.
Harris trails Newsom in multiple polls. Yahoo News has Newsom leading Harris by 2 points. Atlas puts Newsom up by 16 points. Emerson is even worse, with Harris at a mere 11 percent, trailing Newsom (25 percent) and Pete Buttigieg (16 percent). Only Morning Consult has Harris ahead at 29 percent to 19 percent for Newsom. Given that Harris has a massive name recognition advantage, lagging Newsom in any poll is a disaster.
Harris needs to change the narrative and prove she can take on Trump. Because she squandered her structural advantage, Harris is now playing catch-up to Newsom. That kind of game requires imagination and risk-taking — and Harris is not a come-from-behind kind of politician.
Harris is a risk-averse, conventional politician. Her determination to not offend the welter of Democratic Party factions results in word salad speeches and mushy, predictable policy positions. She performed decently when she didn’t have to compete for the Democratic nomination and had the Democratic Party and the establishment media fully behind her with jealous opponents forced to back her. But Harris let her front-runner status leak away.
Today, there is real competition and no deference. Harris is working without a net, and it’s not looking good.
Keith Naughton, a longtime Republican political consultant, is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm, and a former Republican political campaign consultant in Pennsylvania.