As early as 2010, smart Republicans saw such a day coming and worked hard to prevent it from happening.
That year, Kamala Harris, a smart, young, charismatic prosecutor from San Francisco, ran for California’s attorney general for the first time on a statewide basis and won. The race is a preview of politics in 2020 and possibly 2024.
Fourteen years ago, Republicans could not have predicted that Harris would be the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee.
After all, in California and other states, the office is a stepping stone: The AG represents not only the attorney general but also aspiring governors. Many Republicans believe it would be easier to stop Harris before she emerges.
As Harris begins her presidential campaign, most polls show her trailing Republican candidate Donald Trump. It’s a familiar position for her.
In 2003, Harris was the underdog when she ran for San Francisco district attorney against prominent current prosecutor Terrance Hallinan. win that game Partly by running to Hallinan’s right. The San Francisco Chronicle recognized her under the headline: “Harris, for law and order.”
But she can’t stray too far from San Francisco’s liberal orthodoxy, and she’s made a costly promise not to seek the death penalty if elected.
Three months after she took office, a man shot and killed Isaac Espinoza, a young San Francisco police officer, husband and father. True to her words, the new district attorney announced she would not seek ultimate punishment. The reaction was swift and brutal.
Senator Dianne Feinstein Speech at officer’s funeral Sitting in a pew in front of the cathedral, Harris said the killer should be charged with capital murder. The huge cathedral was filled with officers, who stood and applauded. Harris didn’t.
Prosecutors win second-degree murder charges life imprisonment. But Harris’ decision not to seek the death penalty resurfaced in the 2010 campaign and likely will in 2024.
Harris was on the losing end again in 2010, when she faced Republican Steve Cooley, a three-term Los Angeles County district attorney who spent much of his Forty years as a prosecutor. Some Democratic Party elders are publicly predicting Harris will lose to Cooley — not unlike recent Democratic pundits who have questioned Harris’ ability to launch a national campaign.
As Trump might say, Cooley is a prosecutor cast straight from the center, with graying, slightly wrinkled hair and the impression of someone who has witnessed the pain of crime victims. He is known for his successful prosecutions of corrupt politicians and convicted murderers.
In 2010, the Tea Party movement helped Republicans take control of the U.S. House of Representatives and statehouses across the country. They also have reasonable hope of making progress in California, with the attorney general’s office being a top target. A national political action committee spent more than $1 million attacking Harris’ handling of the killing of Officer Espinosa, hoping to stem her rise before it began.
“If this is a byproduct of defeating her, we’re very comfortable with that,” a PAC spokesperson told me a few weeks before the election while I was covering the election for The Sacramento Bee.
The Republican primaries are also a preview of things to come. Cooley faces a right-wing challenge from John Eastman, the former dean of Chapman University School of Law who played a key role in Trump’s failed effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Eastman’s donors include Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo, who was instrumental in Trump’s nomination of Supreme Court justices who helped end federal abortion rights. The decision will be crucial in the 2024 election, perhaps even more so given Harris’ possible nomination.
Although Eastman’s primary failed, the eventual nominee did not escape unscathed. Eastman proposed that if elected, Cooley would receive a pension from Los Angeles County in addition to his salary as attorney general, totaling about $425,000 per year. In the only Cooley-Harris debate I moderated, Jack Leonard of the Los Angeles Times asked the Republican if he would actually receive a pension along with his salary. Cooley Answered He has received the pension and will use it to “supplement the very low — incredibly low — salary paid to the state attorney general.”
Harris saw the answer—a little too honestly—and left it unchanged. “Go for it, Steve,” she said. “You deserve it; make no mistake about it.” The exchange became fodder for a scathing campaign ad from Harris.
Ultimately, the 2010 Republican wave stalled on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada. Harris won by about 74,000 votes out of 9.6 million cast, the narrowest statewide margin that year.
A decade later, Eastman wrote a column questioning Harris’ qualifications to serve as vice president on the grounds that her parents were not naturalized citizens at the time of her birth. A fringe theoryYes, but it caught Trump’s attention and has been resubmit.
Harris will face a variety of attacks in the coming weeks. Some of them may be important, but I’d guess most border on the ridiculous. Can you imagine? The candidate laughed. She also dances!
During Harris’ run for California Attorney General and U.S. Senate, I saw firsthand what kind of candidate she could be: tough, formidable, and disciplined. There is no doubt that Republicans should wish they had stopped her when they had the best chance.
Dan Morain is a former reporter for The Times and the author of “Kamala’s Road: An American Life.”
