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‘She’s A Center-Left Democrat’: David Axelrod Says Harris’ 2020 Far-Left Presidential Run Lacked ‘Authenticity’

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Former President Barack Obama’s chief campaign strategist David Axelrod said on Friday that Vice President Kamala Harris’ far-left 2020 presidential campaign was inauthentic, as she is actually a moderate.

Harris backed many left-wing policies during her 2020 campaign, such as a fracking ban, mandatory federal gun buybacks and the abolition of private health insurance, but the vice president has reversed some of her stances since launching her 2024 campaign. Axelrod, on “Inside Politics With Dana Bash,” said Harris’ 2020 campaign failed because she was inauthentic and that her 2024 campaign is more aligned with her true beliefs.

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‘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

“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,” he added. “And so, right now, she seems like a candidate who’s in sync with her message.”

Harris also praised defunding the police in June 2020, about two months before joining President Joe Biden’s 2020 ticket.

The vice president also advanced left-wing legislation during her time as a senator, including government workforce diversity, environmental justice, eviction halts and work permits for certain illegally present migrants. Harris, in 2018, likened Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to the Ku Klux Klan and suggested that the entire agency should be abolished and remade “from scratch.”