538: Why Kamala Harris's Campaign Failed

DEC. 3, 2019, AT 3:55 PM

Why Kamala Harris’s Campaign Failed
By Perry Bacon Jr.

Filed under 2020 Election

Kamala Harris dropped out of the presidential race on Tuesday, and she’s probably the most significant candidate to do so to date. The senator from California was polling about as well as any candidate outside of the four leading contenders (Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren). She was one of only seven candidates who have qualified for the December debate. And in a field that has become dominated by white and male candidates, she was one of the few female and nonwhite contenders.

What happened to Harris? I wrote an article in early October, after she had gradually dropped to mid single digits in most polls, trying to explain her decline. The most plausible theories, in my view, were:

More: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-kamala-harriss-campaign-failed/