For all her star power, Kamala Harris is still ‘a blank slate’ to many voters
LA TimesVice President Kamala Harris will make history Thursday night as the first woman of color to accept a major party presidential nomination. It’s the story of the vast majority of Americans trying to build a better life.” Polling and focus groups suggest many Americans know who Harris is but not much about her. She is in a race to define her image with Trump, who has used hyperbolic language to paint her as an unqualified “communist.” Politics Harris offers ‘freedom’ and contrast to Trump, but not many policy details The pressure is growing for Vice President Kamala Harris to release more details on her plans if she is elected president, especially in areas where she may differ from President Biden. Sarah Longwell, who runs an anti-Trump Republican political group that holds regular focus groups, said at the Institute of Politics event that many voters who shared negative impressions of Harris months ago revealed in their comments that “they didn’t see her, they didn’t know her, they didn’t know what she did,” which left an opening. But it’s taken a different form: as a call to arms against the loss of abortion rights in the Supreme Court and a sense of angry defiance against gender-based attacks from Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, who has criticized “childless cat ladies.” Clinton, who spoke Monday night, traced Harris’ historic line from Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to seek a major party presidential nomination in 1972, and Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman on a major party’s presidential ticket in 1984 when she ran unsuccessfully for vice president, to her own failed run in 2016.