Republicans target Kamala Harris’ ‘California-ness.’ Do swing-state voters care?

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Costantino, the Shelby Township teacher, noted that the number of violent crimes in San Francisco rose during Harris’ early years as district attorney. The city’s current struggle with crime is something Harris still should own, Costantino said.

“The fact that she’s from California should make her more sensitive to those issues, not less sensitive,” Costantino said. “Just because she goes to Washington doesn’t mean that she should be removed from them.”

But most of the Michigan voters interviewed by CalMatters spoke more about policies from her time as vice president, not while she served in California. While conservative voters blamed the Biden-Harris administration for increases in gas prices, illegal border crossings and national debt, Democrats celebrated her for advocating for abortion rights — an issue that turned out a historic number of Michigan voters in recent elections and helped flip the state Legislature blue.

And some Michigan voters — both Republicans and Democrats — said they did not know Harris for her time in the Golden State.

Joe Koch is a 58-year-old electric operator and a self-described “Christian conservative” in Clinton Township, where Biden won by less than 1 percentage point in 2020 after Trump won it by 4 points in 2016. He called California a “mismanaged” state, blaming Newsom for the state’s budget deficit. “He’s just a populist guy, good hair, but I don’t see him governing,” Koch said.

But Harris’ California roots are “secondary” compared to her policy stances, Koch said. “She could be from New Mexico or Washington,” he said.

Tamela Washington, a 55-year-old Democratic voter, also does not associate Harris with California. She said she only began to notice Harris when she was in the U.S. Senate.

“It doesn’t matter whether she’s from California, Hawaii, Timbuktu. Doesn’t matter. It just blinds us from … what connects us and what keeps us wanting to make this country just better every day,” she said.

Among Michigan’s Arab community, Harris’ California roots fade even further into the background.

Boasting the nation’s second-largest Middle Eastern population, Michigan is home to Dearborn, the first and the largest Arab-American majority city in America. Democratic voters here, partly angered by Biden’s support for Israel in the Gaza war, overwhelmingly voted “uncommitted” over Biden in the March primary.

During Wednesday’s rally, a small group of pro-Palestinian student protesters from the University of Michigan briefly interrupted Harris’ speech before security escorted them out. They chanted: “Kamala Kamala you can’t hide, we won’t vote for genocide!”

“It seems that the number one driving factor in this race will be the Gaza issue. People are not looking at much else,” said Qarim Abdullah, an imam at the American Muslim Center in Dearborn since 2018. A sense of “betrayal” by Biden’s Gaza policies, he said, has driven some to vote for Trump.

And in Arizona — a traditionally-red Sun Belt state that Biden narrowly flipped in 2020 — Harris’ record on illegal immigration at the border will come into laser focus.

The Grand Canyon State’s border with Mexico makes immigration a top concern among its voters. The state’s GOP-led Legislature placed a controversial measure on the November ballot that would allow state and local law enforcement to crack down on illegal border crossings, even though courts deem it a federal power.

Harris — portrayed by Republicans as a liberal “border czar” lenient on illegal migrants — has gone on the offense, tapping into her background cracking down on transnational gang activities as California’s attorney general.

“In that job, I walked underground tunnels between the United States and Mexico,” she said at a rally in Atlanta. “I went after transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers that came into our country illegally. I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won.”

But on other issues, Harris’ California brand could prove to be an advantage, especially abortion.

Arizona Democrats hope her outspokenness on abortion rights — another proposal that could also land on the state’s November ballot — appeals to independent voters and disenfranchised Republicans.

“She’s always been an advocate for women’s health care, and she’s a woman. She gets us,” Patti O’Neil, chairperson of the Maricopa County Democratic Party, said of Harris.

Harris’ support for abortion rights won over Karla Grote, a developer in Gilbert and a former Republican who re-registered as independent after becoming disillusioned with Trump.

“I don’t hate her policies. I don’t hate her thought patterns. Well, she’s pro-choice! That’s a big one for me,” Karla Grote shouted while talking to her husband at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, waiting for a delayed flight back home to Arizona.

“Anybody miss that?” McClellan Grote asked while rolling his eyes, drawing a few chuckles from passengers nearby.

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Republicans target Kamala Harris’ ‘California-ness.’ Do swing-state voters care?

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