As Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns for president, she notably has tried to distance herself from some of her past progressive policy positions, moving closer to the center on several key issues on the top of voters’ minds.
On issues such as gun rights, fracking, border security and more, Harris is expressing views opposite of what they have been during all of her years as vice president, U.S. senator and attorney general of California.
Many voters and some progressives, however, don’t believe she’s actually changed her views, claiming she’s just moving to the center for now to win the election and will revert back to form if she’s elected.
In 2019, Harris said during a town hall that there is “no question” she supports banning fracking. But fracking is a major industry in the swing state of Pennsylvania and she now says she no longer supports such a ban.
Harris also opposed many border security measures under former President Donald Trump, including building a border wall. As “border czar” under President Joe Biden, and as the administration reversed many of Trump’s security measures, Harris has overseen a massive surge in illegal immigration. Total illegal border crossings now total at least 14 million from the beginning of their term through September, by far a record compared to any other administration, The Center Square reported. Border Patrol agents under the Biden-Harris administration were ordered to release illegal border crossers into the U.S. with immigration court dates years in the future, regardless whether they have legitimate asylum claims.
Harris has since changed her tune. During a recent interview with CNN, Harris said those who illegally cross the border should face “consequences,” and she now says she supports building a border wall.
On the Second Amendment, the top gun control advocacy groups issued a joint endorsement of Harris in July, just two days after Biden announced he would be stepping aside. At the time of that endorsement, Harris was clear about her support for gun control measures and praised Australia gun control policies that outlawed firearm usage for self-defense, The Center Square reported. In 2019 as a Democratic presidential candidate, Harris said she supported a mandatory buyback program for certain firearms she dubbed “assault weapons,” Bloomberg reported at the time. Bloomberg described Harris’ position as “a more aggressive position than her main rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination” at the time, which included Biden.
Since then, Harris has highlighted her own gun ownership and told talk show host Oprah Winfrey that, “if somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot.” She also stated that she no longer favors the gun buyback program she supported in 2019, BBC reported.
The progressive groups who supported Harris and her former progressive policy positions have either largely been silent on the Democratic presidential candidiate’s flip-flops on these issues or say they trust she will revert to her past positions if elected.
The gun restriction groups who endorsed her have not issued any statements on her recent comments about Second Amendment rights, for example.
Kerri Talbot, executive director of the Immigration Hub, an immigrant advocacy group, told Axios that she expects Harris to revert back to her former policy positions on immigration if she is elected.
“We all know and trust Harris to make the right decisions when she’s in office,” Talbot told the outlet.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, a self-proclaimed Democratic socialist, made similar remarks on Meet the Press last month. Sanders said he still considers Harris a “progressive” and considered her recent policy position changes on “Medicare for All” and fracking “pragmatic.” Sanders said Harris is “doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.”
Many voters also don’t believe Harris has actually changed her policy positions.
On her new stated position on building a border wall, a recent poll in the swing state of Nevada found that just 30% of those surveyed believe her reversal on the issue is genuine, while 57% said Harris now supporting partial construction of a border wall is politically motivated ahead of the November election.
“Nevadans realize Harris has been the VP and a key part of the Biden-Harris administration,” pollster Raghavan Mayur, president of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, told The Center Square last month. “They see that disassociating from Biden on the border is disingenuous.”
On Harris’ now saying she no longer wants to ban fracking, 49% of Nevada voters don’t believe her to just 28% who do.
