David Axelrod, the chief campaign strategist for former President Barack Obama, stated on Friday that Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential run lacked authenticity, suggesting that she is actually more of a moderate.
During her 2020 campaign, Harris supported several progressive policies, including a ban on fracking, mandatory federal gun buybacks, and the elimination of private health insurance.
However, since announcing her 2024 campaign, the vice president has shifted her stance on some of these issues. Axelrod, speaking on “Inside Politics With Dana Bash,” argued that Harris’ 2020 campaign was unsuccessful due to its lack of authenticity and noted that her 2024 campaign better reflects her genuine beliefs.
“She wasn’t successful in 2020. And I don’t think she was a very good candidate in 2020. She didn’t make it to 2020, actually. Because this is who she is, I think the way she’s running now. She spent her career as a prosecutor, as an attorney general. I think she’s a center-left Democrat,” Axelrod told host Dana Bash. “I think she has obviously a lot of experience on the issue of crime. In many ways, the themes that you hear here reflect who she is and I don’t think she ran on, you know, she basically shoved a bunch of her life, or her advisors did, away four years ago. One thing about presidential politics, Dana, is authenticity is the coin of the realm. If you’re not organic with the words you’re speaking, if you’re not really invested in the words you’re speaking, they don’t reflect who you really are, people will ultimately find out. And so, right now, she seems like a candidate who’s in sync with her message.”
'She's A Center-Left Democrat': David Axelrod Says Harris' 2020 Far-Left Presidential Run Lacked 'Authenticity' pic.twitter.com/5dzzAAp2lT
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 23, 2024
In June 2020, Harris expressed support for the idea of defunding the police, just a couple of months before joining President Joe Biden on the 2020 ticket.
During her tenure as a senator, the vice president pushed for various progressive initiatives, such as promoting diversity within the government workforce, advocating for environmental justice, supporting eviction moratoriums, and proposing work permits for specific groups of migrants without legal status.
In 2018, Harris made a controversial comparison between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and the Ku Klux Klan, suggesting that the agency should be completely dismantled and rebuilt “from scratch.”
