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How would Kamala Harris govern? Her past career offers signals.

Kamala Harris has spent nearly her entire career working in government. Viewed by many as a rising star from the outset, she moved doggedly from the District Attorney’s Office in San Francisco to state attorney general. She won a U.S. Senate seat on her first try, and just four years later was tapped as President Joe Biden’s second in command.

Asked to characterize her record over the course of her 20 years in public office, longtime political observer John Pitney sums it up this way: “progressive, but not radical.” In many ways, he says, a Harris presidency would probably look a lot like an extension of the Biden presidency. “If you like what Joe Biden tried to do, you’ll like what Kamala Harris tries to do,” says Dr. Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College in California. 

Harris and the California years: “smart on crime”?

When Ms. Harris ran for district attorney in 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle ran this headline in its endorsement: “Harris, for Law and Order.” She campaigned to the right of the incumbent (her former boss), promising higher conviction rates, higher prosecution of drug crimes, and better relations with police. She later touted a felony conviction rate far higher than her predecessor’s. 

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