Harris, frustrated with the news coverage of her performance as the vice president, cited what she believes is bias against her race and gender for the negative reporting.
QUICK FACTS:
- Vice President Kamala Harris claims that being a minority woman has led to the negative media coverage she has received since taking office, according to The New York Times.
- In an article titled, Heir Apparent or Afterthought? The Frustrations of Kamala Harris, the publication outlines Harris’s frustration with criticism that she is falling short and the idea that her supporters might be turning on her.
- The vice president also reportedly believes she may be alienating constituents with the cutting edge nature of her key causes, such as voting rights and the root causes of migration, which have received hot criticism.
- Some Harris allies have stated they think the White House should have been clearer about their expectations of the vice president and protected her more aggressively in the public’s eye.
WHAT HARRIS’ SUPPORTERS THINK:
- “I think she was an enormous help to the ticket during the campaign,” said Mark Buell, one of Harris’s earliest fund-raisers since early in her California political career. “I would like to see her employed in the same way, now that they’re implementing their objectives or goals.”
- “The vice president has diligently worked alongside the president coordinating with partners, allies, and Democratic members of the House and Senate to advance the goals of this administration,” said Sabrina Singh, Ms. Harris’s deputy press secretary.
- “I think it’s no secret that the different things she has been asked to take on are incredibly demanding, not always well understood publicly, and take a lot of work as well as a lot of skill,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in an interview. “You have to do everything except one thing, which is take credit.”
BACKGROUND:
- Harris’s approval rating has fallen to a historic 28 percent, which is the lowest of any modern vice president in American history, according to USA Today/Suffolk poll data reported by Yahoo News.
- Publications like the Los Angeles Daily News and the Wall Street Journal have featured articles from their columnist with titles like, Kamala Harris Needs to Get Serious and The Problem With Kamala Harris, where prominent authors have outlined some of the public’s key issues with Harris’s job performance.
