by Lynn Schmidt
Anyone who has gone fishing, caught one and had it wiggle out of their hands, knows that while a fish is flopping around searching for a way back to the water, there is no predicting exactly where it will land or on which side will be up once it does.
So it goes with politics. The wiggling fish is Vice President Kamala Harris’ words and actions on immigration and border security. Watching from the dock are a small number of swing voters waiting to see where this issue touches down.
Since President Joe Biden stepped down as the Democratic Party’s nominee, Harris indeed has the wind at her back. She has captured momentum, money, enthusiasm and the media’s attention. It also appears that many voters who described themselves as “double haters” when it was a Biden/Trump race are rewarding the Democrats for changing the top of their ticket.
But in an election that is likely to come down to a few thousand votes in five or so states, the question remains: Will the electorate reward or punish Harris for her flip-flopping on the top issue concerning voters.
In February 2024, Gallup noted that “immigration” surged as the leader in its Top of Most Important Problem List. This was the first time immigration has been the single most important problem since 2019. Then in April, Gallup published the following headline: “Immigration Named Top U.S. Problem for Third Straight Month.”
Gallup also released a poll just last month which showed that 55% of Americans want immigration levels reduced, the highest since 2001, and up from 41% last year.
The country’s feelings about immigration run counter to what Harris was selling during her 2019 Democratic presidential primary race. Back then she supported decriminalizing illegal entry to the U.S. and even backed offering health care to those who entered illegally.
Back in 2021, Biden tasked his vice president to address the root causes of mass migration from Central and South America. There has been a lot of back and forth in the media lately about whether she could fairly have been called the “Border Czar,” but that misses the point. It doesn’t matter what the role was called; what’s important is the responsibility laid at her feet.
There has certainly been criticism of Harris’ performance regarding our southern border. In 2023, the Border Patrol’s employee union called out Harris’ inaction with the border crisis, tweeting: “If you were given a job 2 years ago with the explicit goal of reducing illegal immigration, and then you sit around and do nothing while illegal immigration explodes to levels never seen before, you should be fired and replaced. Period.”
Now, as the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has done a 180-degree turn on immigration and border security. This politically savvy move is not at all uncommon for candidates to do ahead of a general election.
At a recent rally in Arizona, Politico reported, Harris messaged the following points to the crowd: highlighting her record as AG of “border state” California in combating transnational crime; promising to fight for “strong border security”; attacking Trump for killing bipartisan border legislation earlier this year; and promising to sign a similar bill if she became president.
Harris also mentioned “comprehensive immigration reform that includes … an earned pathway to citizenship.”
While Harris is delivering a new message at campaign events, her campaign website still does not include the vice president’s stance on any policy issues, agenda, or platforms.
Many have commented on the fact that Harris has yet in the current campaign to sit down for an interview or take reporters’ questions in a formal press conference. It is therefore difficult to know exactly where she stands on the issues of immigration and border security and how a Harris administration would govern with regards to our southern border.
In a recent Bulwark podcast, statistician and founder of the polling analysis website FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver, attempted to describe Harris’ underperformance as vice president as opposed to her current overperformance as a presidential candidate.
“And then I kind of wonder if, like, how much the White House, while she (Harris) was vice president, was trying to stymie her or limit her,” Silver said. “She got some rough assignments, like the border and, like, voting rights, which is not inherently a tough assignment, but the one thing they weren’t able to really do anything about.”
To be clear, this was Silver’s personal opinion. But when pundits and political professionals use the term “rough assignment” to describe only one duty, it does not give voters much confidence that Harris can handle all the other facets of the job combined were she to win the presidency.
The caveat to all of the above is that Harris is running against former president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. The Trump campaign is struggling to find a coherent message and its top messenger is deeply flawed. Therefore, for the very fact that she is not Trump, Harris’ immigration flip flops may not matter in the end.
