Vice President Kamala Harris is playing the heavy as she and President Joe Biden tag-team their 2024 reelection effort.
When Republican presidential aspirants flocked to Iowa, home of the first-in-the-nation caucuses, to speak at the Lincoln Day Dinner, Harris followed them to Des Moines to talk about abortion rights — a major issue on which Democrats plan to hit the GOP next year.
HUNTER BIDEN PLEA DEAL COLLAPSES IN COURT AS JUDGE THROWS 'CURVEBALL'
Before that, Harris flew to Nashville to rally with the three Tennessee Democratic lawmakers who were briefly expelled from the Republican-controlled state legislature following a gun control protest.
“We are here because [the lawmakers] and their colleagues in the Democratic caucus chose to show courage in the face of extreme tragedy,” Harris told a crowded chapel at Fisk University. “They chose to lead and show courage and say that a democracy allows for places where the people’s voice will be heard and honored and respected.”
Harris also went on a hastily planned trip to Florida to launch a sustained attack on Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), currently the runner-up for the 2024 GOP nomination, in what could be a preview of the Democrats’ general election playbook. “And what is happening here in Florida?” Harris asked the crowd in Jacksonville. “Extremist so-called leaders for months have dared to ban books. Book bans in this year of our Lord 2023.”
Harris was on a roll. “Extremists here in Florida passed a law, ‘Don't Say Gay,’ trying to instill fear in our teachers that they should not live their full life and love who they love,” she said in reference to the much-maligned Parental Rights in Education bill that DeSantis signed into law last year and then expanded earlier this year.
Then Harris went after the black history curricula approved for the state. “And now, on top of all of that, they want to replace history with lies,” she said. “Middle school students in Florida to be told that enslaved people benefited from slavery.”
The audience booed.
“High schoolers may be taught that victims of violence, of massacres were also perpetrators,” Harris said. “I said it yesterday: They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us — and we will not have it. And we will not have it.”
It’s not unusual for vice presidents to be deployed in this manner. Vice President Spiro Agnew went on offense for President Richard Nixon, as Nixon early in his vice presidential days did for President Dwight Eisenhower. Vice President Dan Quayle was more of a movement conservative than President George H.W. Bush.
Democratic strategists told the Washington Examiner that is not particularly new for Harris, who was active on the campaign trail and outspoken about abortion during the midterm elections. Since the reversal of Roe v. Wade blunted Republican momentum in some races, heading off a potential red wave, they argue she should receive her share of credit for the results.
But for Harris, it may be a return to form. The vice president rose to prominence due to her prosecutor background, rising up the ranks in California to become attorney general. Once in the Senate, she applied those skills toward grilling Trump administration officials and other Republicans in committee hearings.
Harris moved away from this image for two reasons. One, “Kamala the Cop” became an epithet rather than a badge of honor as Democrats embraced criminal justice reform and the most progressive elements of the party flirted with defunding the police. Former Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard used Harris’s prosecutorial record against her during the 2020 Democratic presidential race, saying in a viral debate moment that Harris locked people up for their marijuana use while laughing about her own.
Secondly, Harris was plagued by a likeability problem. While many view this as an unfair or even sexist criticism often leveled against women running for office — Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren both faced such complaints — it showed in her favorability ratings. Harris’s presidential campaign didn’t even make it to when the first votes were cast in 2020.
Yet attempts to soften Harris’s image haven’t noticeably improved her poll numbers. Her approval rating stands at 40.2% in the current FiveThirtyEight polling average, while 51.2% disapprove of her performance in office. Her favorability rating is worse, at 37% to 53.3% holding an unfavorable view, according to the RealClearPolitics average. The most recent survey, by Economist/YouGov, finds her at 56% unfavorable.
What Harris’s musings about space or storytelling to children who were later revealed to be actors or fits of laughter at the podium have produced is negative attention. The same can be said for her policy portfolio within the Biden administration, though allies say the nature of her assignments hasn’t done her any favors.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Now Harris is back to being a prosecutor, this time making the case against would-be Republican opponents.
“What do we need to do?” Harris exhorted attendees at a Democratic National Committee fundraising reception. “We need to win.”