U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- California Senator Kamala Harris has dropped her bid to win the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, having plummeted in the polls to 2 percent in the most recent survey by Harris and The Hill. Her decision was confirmed by Politico Tuesday.
That makes one less anti-gunner on the presidential campaign trail, joining Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, Sen. Kristin Gillibrand (D-NY), former Congressman Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke and others. O’Rourke may have set the stage for several departures when he declared—unchallenged by other Democrats during a debate in Houston—‘Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47!” That remark, despite O’Rourke’s departure from the field, has dogged Democrats ever since because none of them disavowed it.
Harris was among the most vocal of the Democrat candidates when it came to guns. Earlier this year, Harris made headlines when she vowed, if elected, to give Congress 100 days to act on gun control legislation, and if Capitol Hill didn’t take action, she would by executive order. The threat hit a nerve across the Second Amendment landscape, and Harris never recovered. She also was confronted during a debate by rival Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who challenged her work as a prosecutor in California. The moment, said one report, caught Harris “flat-footed.”
According to the National Review, Harris started the week trailing newcomer Michael Bloomberg. She had recently cut campaign staff and canceled a fundraiser in New York.
As noted by the Washington Examiner, “Harris, whose father is from Jamaica and late mother was from India, experienced a surge in polling and fundraising following the opening debates in Miami in June after she confronted front-runner Joe Biden for touting his work with known segregationists over the course of his 36 years in the Senate and his stance on federally mandated busing in the 1960s and 1970s. However, the two-term California state attorney general and ex-San Francisco district attorney’s inconsistent performance on the campaign trail squandered that momentum.”
While the field is thinning, remaining Democrats seem no less interested in pushing gun control. Billionaire Bloomberg, who has a virtually bottomless personal campaign war chest, has been touting his gun control efforts while offering something of a “moderate” contrast to the far-left lineup at the beginning of the primary race several months ago. Bloomberg’s entry into the race last month grabbed the spotlight, even though it appears the party’s far-left contingent is hardly prepared to embrace him. Still in the race, and giving Bloomberg a challenge, are Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
CNBC reported Tuesday that Harris’ campaign was in turmoil and that she had been steadily slipping in the polls, which has affected her ability to keep up with campaign fundraising. She finished behind Sanders, Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg in fundraising during the third quarter, the network noted.
While it probably cannot be said that her gun control position is not directly responsible for her plummeting popularity, it didn’t help. With Monday’s hearing by the U.S. Supreme Court of a challenge to a now-amended gun control law in New York City, Second Amendment rights are still very much on the political radar. Moving into 2020, the issue will remain in the spotlight, as gun owners in Iowa, Ohio and other states with strong Second Amendment voting blocs have more opportunities to confront candidates and cut through the political boilerplate messages.
When Swalwell left the race last summer, Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, noted in a statement, “What none of these candidates seem to understand is that they are actually pushing people to buy more guns with their outrageous campaign rhetoric.”
He accused anti-gun Democrats of demagoguery and predicted that the more they talk about regulating guns, the more firearms and ammunition sales will spike. Harris’ vow to adopt gun control policies by executive order was exactly what Gottlieb was talking about.
Harris, as noted by the National Review, is being criticized by “many of her own advisors” for having gone “on the offensive against rivals, only to retreat, and for not firmly choosing a side in the party’s ideological feud between liberals and moderates.”
For now, Harris has made the ultimate retreat, leaving the race altogether.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
Spartacus is next. Paring down the useless to what’s left, the totally useless…
Anyone voting for a Democrat is an absolute idiot and I used to be a Democrat! I went Independent the first time someone told that horrible woman Hillary that she should run for president. The party is lost and is hopefully in decline. It is full of leftist whackos and has become a bastion for the maladjusted, America hating mentally ill. Friends don’t let friends vote Democrat!
Wake up America!
As if anyone thought “IT” had a legitimate chance of being nominated. Her demeanor was much the same as the HildaBeast. Sour and vindictive. Plus this time there was no one to “screw”.. Except honest hard working Patriotic Americans. Who saw through “It’s” facade of Free Stuff and Repressed Freedoms. While this one is gone. There are still many more to defeat. Keep Your Powder Dry.
And her statements on guns, because they were not disavowed by her fellow candidates, can be used against them.
A more accurate headline would be “Harris can’t Figure out who to Sleep With to Improve Poll Numbers, Drops out of Race.”
Awesome Comment!!
Time to get her out of government, completely.
@wjd, I see that the executives at Jeep Corp have decided to put out, for the 2020 model year, the new Elizabeth Warren edition vehicle … It is a White Cherokee.
Now that’s funny. Biden and Bernie should drive one to the next debate!
If you vote democrat in the upcoming 2020 election, then you just voted for socialism. Then you will have voted for every anti-2A law that you will be able to shake a stick at. You then voted for a bigger, more intrusive government who wants more, as in those tax dollars that Pelosi called “crumbs,” who then dismissed that money as pocket change. All of which, will set this country up for a governing system that will see us escorted back to the Stone Age, where the bigger the knuckle-dragging club, the more you will acquiesce. And oh poor Mz.… Read more »
Maybe she can tune up her knee pads and go see Willy Brown about getting her old job back.
What binds them together? I would have to say their willful blindness to truth and their hatred for the United States of America. They all believe socialism/communism is far better than a free republic, and they believe that lie without a shred of proof.
What else binds them together? the ideology they choose is totally against the Bible and anyone who believes in it. The state is god and their god comes out the barrel of a gun that is held by them and no one else.
Mr. Workman,
A great informative article and very will written, thank you. Though Kamala Harris is no longer running as a presidential candidate, she is still a sitting U.S. Senator. That means she will be able to either, propose ,enact and get passed into law more gun control laws. The same applies to the other presidential candidates if their campaigns fail. Bloomberg, Warren and the others are all serious threats to the Second Amendment, The Bill of Rights and the Constitution in general.
They are still SUBVERSIVES who are in power.
Scary thought, eh? When I think of Schiff’s personal house of horrors, where he excluded all but his minions in his quest to impeach, I see a departmentalized hideout somewhere in Hell where everyone has all these pointy little pitchforks, as brought to bear by all this maniacal laughter. Did I miss anything?
Guess we are down to the booker and the Indian Chief of the Village People = Idiots running for second place in 2020.
Willie Browns willing willie receptacle just dropped out of the Commiecrat field today,back to the senate with the other whores to frustrate Freedom .
@wjd, Her entire campaign was a phony. A politician can not beg for donations unless they are running for something. Apparently she raised enough cash to avoid honest work for a few more years.
One thing I’ve noticed is that some black candidates when beginning their campaigns have very light skin, and after they lose their skin seems to miraculously lighten up.
This tells me that from the get go they are liars, and hypocrites. I do not, and will not vote for them! vote for them!
“Harris, whose father is from Jamaica and late mother was from India, and that right there means she never was LEGALLY in the race. It astounds me that NO ONE ever made an issue of her inelgibility to stand for the office of President. She is NOT eligible, with both parents non-citizens at the time of her birth. Many of us here will remember her frequent appearance on this site as she played the cruel tyrant back when she was California’s Attorney General. Her Department of “Justice” contunually made war on Californians with respect to their RIGHT to arms, She… Read more »
She may “ponder” why, but she will never “understand” why. She is a creature of ideological habit, just as they all are. Once you’ve gone to the dark side, or have been born into it, there’s no coming back.
I’m working on it. I’m reading a book by an Air Force/ Navy vet. Named William Cooper ‘Behold a Pale Horse’. Highly enlightening.
The only moron I’m worried about is Bloomberg.
She probably realized that even she might have to give up her guns too and balked at the chance.