WASHINGTON — As California’s attorney general, Kamala Harris successfully defended the death penalty in court, despite her past crusade against it.
As a new senator, she proposed to abolish cash bail — a reversal from when she chided San Francisco judges for making it ''cheaper'' to commit crimes by setting bail amounts too low.
And now, as vice president and the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris' campaign insists that she does not want to ban fracking, an oil and gas extraction process, even though that was precisely her position just a few years ago when she first pursued the White House.
Politicians often recalibrate in the face of shifting public opinions and circumstances. Across two decades in elected office and now seeking the presidency for the second time, Harris has not hesitated to stake out expedient and — at times — contradictory positions as she climbed the political ladder. Harris' litany of policy reversals is opening her to attacks by Republicans and testing the strength of her pitch to voters as a truth-teller who is more credible than former President Donald Trump.
Her shifts, including on matters that she has framed as moral issues, could raise doubts about her convictions as she is reintroducing herself to the public after taking the reins of the campaign from President Joe Biden, who last month dropped out of the race.
In addition to reversing course on fracking and cash bail, Harris has changed tack on issues including health care (she supported a plan to eliminate private health insurance before she opposed it), immigration and gun control.
''She is vulnerable to the charge of flip-flopping, no question about that,'' said John Pitney, a professor of political science at Claremont McKenna College in California, who worked as a GOP congressional and political aide in the 1980s. ''The trouble for Republicans, to put it lightly'' is Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, ''do not come to this issue with spotless records.''
In a statement, Harris' campaign did not address her policy shifts. Instead, a campaign spokesman leaned into her credentials as a San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general to attack Trump.