# Was Kamala Harris a below average Democratic Presidential Candidate?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [February 18, 2026, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801 "2026-02-18T19:03:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/21 "2026-02-18T19:45:48Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#):
>
> She tried to do that, IIRC.
>
> But it’s hard to present the argument that you’ll do something different that you aren’t already doing as part of the current administration.
A good point, and which gets back to my point about her trying to thread a needle between establishing herself, and not dissing the then-current administration.
> [@Great\_Antibob](#):
>
> AND, people are dumb.
This, absolutely. I also suspect that, to the extent that we still have true swing/independent voters now, most of them are probably also low-information voters, and not generally engaged.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/22 "2026-02-18T19:48:15Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#):
>
> IMO, she was placed in an unenviable (maybe untenable) position: she had to differentiate herself from Biden, and yet, not tear her boss and his policies down in the process.
>
> And, she was being forced to run on an inflationary economy, even if yes, logically, neither Biden, nor much less her, was directly responsible for most of that. Most people don’t vote logically, and if they feel like they can’t afford things, they are going to blame whoever is currently in charge.
>
> As a liberal, I thought that her performance at the DNC was very good, but clearly didn’t carry over into strong momentum for the rest of the race.
I can’t find fault in any of that. Being the VP of a not particularly popular president is a hard needle to thread. You can’t be seen as disloyal but you can’t say “I would have done everything exactly the same.”
It was clear that inflation and the economy was going to be the big issue. What was her big solution? She was going to go after price gouging? It just didn’t work.
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### Author:  [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/23 "2026-02-18T19:54:09Z")
> [@mozchron](#):
>
> If she had been a white man, she would have won.
Pretty much all that needs to be said.
Same goes for Hillary.
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### Author:  [@Calder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calder)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/24 "2026-02-18T19:56:16Z")
hmm, thanks for the correction.
I am certain, I remember that she took a beating in several of Democratic primary debates because she was a prosecutor who was tough on crime. Can anyone else remember why that was such an issue for her if this was still before George?
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/25 "2026-02-18T19:57:38Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#):
>
> > [@mozchron](#):
> >
> > If she had been a white man, she would have won.
>
> Pretty much all that needs to be said.
>
> Same goes for Hillary.
You think Biden would have won?
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### Author:  [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/26 "2026-02-18T20:01:53Z")
Pretty much every incumbent party/candidate lost in the Western world – liberal candidates lost, conservative candidates lost, depending on who was in party. In Canada, the Liberal party was at risk of losing its status as a national party because they were so unpopular (they were bailed out by Trump backing the Conservatives and then threatening to annex them).
So, in that context, where all incumbent parties and their candidates failed, someone needs to convince me that the Democrats could have won with anyone.
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/27 "2026-02-18T20:02:47Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#):
>
> Not sure I would call either CV particularly thin, or either clearly thinner than the other.
All of her experience before being US senator was in law, mostly law enforcement. For me that is too narrow, and doesn’t necessarily translate well to all the kinds of policy issues that presidents have to deal with. 4 years each as US Senator and VP could have made up for that quite a bit, but I never got the sense that it did.
Obama was a great candidate (not so great a president, but this thread isn’t about that) which had mainly to do with his own personal qualities, which probably could be summarized as charisma tied to intelligence. His CV was also often brought up as thin, but it didn’t seem to matter because he was almost mesmerizing to listen to.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/28 "2026-02-18T20:06:12Z")
> [@Loach](#):
>
> You think Biden would have won?
I’m not the people you quoted, but I don’t think he would have.
Trump, his followers, and the media had successfully portrayed Biden as being old, ill, and increasingly incapable; his performance in the debate cemented that portrayal in many people’s minds (fairly or not). So, any hypothetical advantage he might have had, versus a female candidate, was swamped by that.
Plus, he would have been running on the economy under him as president, and even less able to talk about what he’d do differently than Harris could. If anything, he might have even done more poorly than Harris did.
In a hypothetical world in which Harris was male, maybe “he” would have done a little bit better than Earth-1 (female) Harris; I’m not sure that it would have made enough of a difference.
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### Author:  [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/29 "2026-02-18T20:18:13Z")
> [@Loach](#):
>
> You think Biden would have won?
If he were her age and lacked his baggage, sure.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/30 "2026-02-18T20:21:01Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#):
>
> > [@Loach](#):
> >
> > You think Biden would have won?
>
> If he were her age and lacked his baggage, sure.
Age maybe. You can’t deny her baggage. That’s part of the discussion as to whether she was a bad candidate
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### Author:  [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/31 "2026-02-18T20:21:10Z")
> [@mozchron](#):
>
> If she had been a white man, she would have won.
She had all the qualities of Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry on the campaign trail. All of whom were white men and also complete losers.
Anyway, as I’ve said before, she was a poor candidate. I think she’s a poor politician outside her niche of law as well. What everyone seemed to like about her before 2019 was that she was good at the pageantry of the waste of time that is a Senate hearing. She manages to sound decent when she is speaking in a format where she can’t get pushback: a Senate hearing, presumably as a prosecutor in a court room with its strictly defined rules, things like that. Having to actually respond in an interview or a debate almost always wound up in either a word salad or a canned line of minimal relevance (the 2019 debate where she attacked Biden on a bus policy from decades earlier, for instance.) Her proposals were thin both times and were often head scratchers, whether it was a misunderstanding of Pell grants (and a bizarre set of conditions that was going to apply) in 2019 or crypto for black men in 2024 as just two examples.
If your resume is success in what is effectively a one party state and less than a term in the Senate, you better have the capability of Obama. Otherwise expect to lose. And Obama still might have lost the primary to Clinton if her campaign has actually managed the caucus states properly and not let him go on the run of wins in the middle of the calendar.
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### Author:  [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/32 "2026-02-18T20:24:27Z")
Had to imagine why we are doing this again.
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### Author:  [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/33 "2026-02-18T20:40:08Z")
> [@Loach](#):
>
> That’s part of the discussion as to whether she was a bad candidate
Or at least below average.
But I see this is diverging into two separate but related questions.
The first is her quality as a candidate. The other is the chances of electoral success.
I didn’t think she was a great campaigner but was at least a reasonable candidate. Unfortunately, it’s really the former that is of primary importance, regardless of one’s qualities to actually serve as the chief executive of a major nation.
But the more interesting question is the latter - were her chances significantly worse than any other Democratic candidate to the extent the election was winnable? I’m more doubtful on that score. An unspoken assumption many seem to make is some hypothetical matchup where both (D) and (R) candidates start with equal chances. And that doesn’t track with reality.
It would have required Biden announce very early he did not intend to seek re-election. And then, given the state of inflation, any candidate, though Harris in particular, would still have been hard pressed to thread that same needle of differentiating themselves from Biden while not tearing his policies down to the extent it influenced Congressional action and Biden’s current agenda.
I suspect a winnable election would also have required a major gaffe from the Trump camp, and don’t forget he gets a pass on what constitutes a ‘gaffe’ compared to anybody else. Plus that shooter in Pennsylvania would have made it even tougher.
I suppose if inflation hadn’t been so high, it might also work, but that would have meant the post-COVID economic recovery was not on track, which is bad in a different way.
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### Author:  [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/34 "2026-02-18T20:57:41Z")
> [@Procrustus](#):
>
> Harris did all the right things and said all the right things.
I thought she said all the right things at the debate — from a political horse race standpoint. These included a proposed $6,000 child tax credit, a $50,000 startup business tax credit, and grocery price controls to address gouging.
I did not agree with the last one on policy grounds, but I thought it was a good political move in an election where defeating Trump was essential.
What surprised me is that she failed to frequently repeat her populist economic proposals after the debate. I also was surprised that she never criticized Biden for not adopting her populist economic proposals. She probably would have lost regardless, but I suspect she should have pushed her proposals more often, and risked annoying Biden.
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### Author:  [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/35 "2026-02-18T21:04:05Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#):
>
> She probably would have lost regardless…
Just like the incumbent parties in German, the UK, France, etc. All lost ground or lost outright that year. Did they all happen to have bad candidates? It was inflation that was the nail in the coffin – voters were angry and blamed the parties in power.
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### Author:  [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/36 "2026-02-18T21:49:23Z")
I did not see her as a particularly _poor_ candidate, but not particularly great either. But I wonder if part of the challenge was that people thirsted for an Obama or at least a Clinton at this point, and that’s just not what they were ever getting (sure, in 2020 facing Trump and the pandemic, the safe play was: World’s Most NORMAL Old White Guy. But that was an emergency, presumed to be over with — the people wanted more than that now). That would be running with a millstone on your back.
As mentioned a disadvantage for Harris was because of the late handover she did not get enough of a launching run as she would have had with a normal open primary, to build herself up as a fighting candidate in the lead role as opposed to as running mate.
She was right to drop out on 2019 when she noticed she was getting no traction. But…
> [@Great\_Antibob](#):
>
> It would have required Biden announce very early he did not intend to seek re-election.
…in my Earth, Biden would have announced withdrawal no later than SOTU 2023 stating that the plan was to be transitional all along and encouraged all upcoming candidates to run on building upon his infrastructure and energy bills to do even more investment for the working families. Then said “I’ll be busy Presidenting, knock yourselves out, young folk”.
Harris would have had strong competition in an open primary but now with a year’s margin from a high office (that doesn’t have much to do) she would have been able to tune in better what her message would be. No guarantee anyway of being the nominee and even if so a tall order still, as sitting VPs directly getting elected to the Presidency is extraordinarily rare, only twice (1836,1988) since the paired election system was established.
Plus as mentioned, incumbents all over the place were getting slammed or at least embarassed during this time frame. It was not going to look good no matter what.
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### Author:  [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/37 "2026-02-18T22:00:00Z")
> [@Calder](#):
>
> I am certain, I remember that she took a beating in several of Democratic primary debates because she was a prosecutor who was tough on crime. Can anyone else remember why that was such an issue for her if this was still before George?
Black Lives Matter had gone national about five years prior those late 2019 Democratic primary debates. Michael Brown’s killing in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 was a particular flashpoint.
---
### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/38 "2026-02-18T22:06:00Z")
> [@Calder](#):
>
> Her 2020 election campaign for president was pretty poor. She ended up dropping out before a single vote was cast.
No actual campaign- and 17 other candidates also withdrew before the primaries- and some of them are touted as a good choice. Not to mention 9 candidates who had very little support withdrew during the primaries- including Buttigieg, Warren and Klobuchar- shouldn’t they be disqualified also? Some pundits think that Harris’s “toe in the water” was a ploy to get her Veep- and it worked.
> [@Calder](#):
>
> She only served a single term as Senator from a deep blue state. IIRC She generally underperformed vs a generic democratic canidate in each of her 2010, 2014, and 2016 elections, with the 2010 one in particular standing out as bad as she almost lost to a Republican in a deep blue region.
During that period she was CA Attorney general, where she did run in a crowded race, but won each time, in 2014, she won 53 to 12%- where 25% of the state is GOP, and 22% is Indy. Om pther words, she got GOP and Indy votes.
> [@Calder](#):
>
> I remember numerous news articles while she was vice president, criticizing her.
Yeah, there is always Criticism- trump got WAY more and still won. What’s your point?
> [@Calder](#):
>
> and lost despite massively outspending Trump.
trump= $1.5 M, Harris $2M, that is not “massively”.
> [@Procrustus](#):
>
> I blame the voters for this. Harris did all the right things and said all the right things. More than half of the voters preferred Trump, to their everlasting shame.
The #1 issue was Inflation. trump lied his ass off and more or less promised to end inflation with a stroke of his pen. Harris didnt lie. The truth lost.
> [@Great\_Antibob](#):
>
> And what they have said is they wouldn’t have voted for Trump if they hadn’t thought or assumed he would go after their own identity groups or people they know, i.e. only go after the “bad” guys, whoever that was supposed to be. And they assumed he would do something about the economy in short order and think that should be a higher priority right now.
>
> Basically, what we know from our vantage in 2026 is that people in hindsight are directly telling us their 2024 vote was a combination of “it’s the economy, stupid” and “I didn’t think the Leopards would eat MY face”. Neither of those things would have been significantly different for any other Dem candidate over Harris.
Right. Dems dont tell Big “pants on fire” lies. trump did and does.
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#):
>
> I don’t think we ever had a chance to see her merits, such as they might have been. She was bland and inoffensive, and that is never enough against a demagogue.
Worked for Biden.
> [@bordelond](#):
>
> Strictly, Harris was never running for President at any point in the year 2020. Her campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination **[ended in December 2019](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris_2020_presidential_campaign)** and she was never on any state’s 2020 Democratic primary ballot.
Yep. I believe the OP has made this same point before and has been debunked on it before.
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> This is why I feel a VP wasn’t a good idea. If Democrats had selected a totally unrelated candidate who’d never been in Biden’s cabinet or government, then that new Democrat could credibly present himself as a much fresher-face outsider alternative to Biden.
Biden was actually a really solid president. Yes, he inherited high inflation from trump, but he worked on getting it down. Otherwise, the economy was great. Note that the Oval Office can do nothing to end inflation in a year, and just a little to reduce if over years. Voters dont want to hear that- they prefer the lies.
> [@mozchron](#):
>
> If she had been a white man, she would have won.
Nope.
> [@Dinsdale](#):
>
> Had to imagine why we are doing this again.
Seems to be a issue with this OP.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2026, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/39 "2026-02-18T22:10:34Z")
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> Worked for Biden.
During a pandemic, which the incumbent administration fumbled in management and messaging, and which had led to economic upheaval. If COVID had not happened, Trump wins that election, going away.
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### Author:  [@Calder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calder)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2026, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-kamala-harris-a-below-average-democratic-presidential-candidate/1027801/40 "2026-02-19T00:50:18Z")
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> No actual campaign- and 17 other candidates also withdrew before the primaries- and some of them are touted as a good choice.
Your going to have to explain this as it appears to be an incredibly illogical argument. Someone who literally held a press conference saying they are running for president in the 2020 election, someone who spent millions of dollars, someone who spent thousands of hours campaigning, didn’t have an actual campaign for president?!?!? Am I being whooshed?!?
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> During that period she was CA Attorney general, where she did run in a crowded race, but won each time, in 2014, she won 53 to 12%- where 25% of the state is GOP, and 22% is Indy. Om pther words, she got GOP and Indy votes.
I am not trying to be rude, but your math doesn’t work here at all. By your own numbers, Kamala didn’t win any of the Republican or Independent voters. She can reach 53% without a single vote from either of those groups. (ie 25+22 only reaches 47)
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> > [@Calder](#):
> >
> > and lost despite massively outspending Trump.
>
> trump= $1.5 M, Harris $2M, that is not “massively”.
Outspending by 500 million dollars isn’t massively?!? Even by % terms it is over 25% more.
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> > [@bordelond](#):
> >
> > Strictly, Harris was never running for President at any point in the year 2020. Her campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination **[ended in December 2019](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris_2020_presidential_campaign)** and she was never on any state’s 2020 Democratic primary ballot.
>
> Yep. I believe the OP has made this same point before and has been debunked on it before.
I have no idea what you are talking about. You appear to be confusing me with someone else, as I haven’t talked about Kamala anywhere else.
Are you seriously making the argument that a person who canceled their campaign for president in December of 2019 didn’t actually try to run for president in 2020? I am very comfortable saying we have very different definitions of what a debunking is.
So in your view, when Kamala held a press conference in 2019 and said she was running for president, she was lying?!?
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