On Tuesday, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) suspended her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Harris entered the race as a front-runner, a candidate gifted with a compelling backstory, a strong stage presence and a donor base in the largest and wealthiest state in the nation. She was able to launch her campaign with a powerful rally that drew tens of thousands to her hometown of Oakland.
But it is now 11 months later, and Harris told supporters that she was no longer financially capable of running a strong campaign.
“I’ve taken stock and looked at this from every angle, and over the last few days have come to one of the hardest decisions of my life. My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue,” Harris wrote. “I’m not a billionaire. I can’t fund my own campaign. And as the campaign has gone on, it’s become harder and harder to raise the money we need to compete.”
“In good faith, I can’t tell you, my supporters and volunteers, that I have a path forward if I don’t believe I do,” she wrote.
Harris has seemed at times to have the greatest potential to replicate then-Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) rise from state office to the Senate and the White House. She had hopes of reassembling Obama’s coalition of younger and African American voters, and she demonstrated an ability to command a debate stage like few others among her peers.
Harris won key endorsements among activists in Iowa and hired an army of field organizers among the largest in the critical first-in-the-nation caucus state.
“She assembled a really good team. She had some really smart, talented people on her team,” said Doug Thornell, a Democratic strategist. “She had a really good launch, which set a high bar.”
Harris struggled to convert the early enthusiasm into steady support. As other candidates chose sides on how to overhaul the nation’s health care system, Harris tried to straddle warring camps. She seemed to never find a way to capitalize on her two best assets: her home state, the largest single delegation to the 2020 Democratic National Convention, and her career as a tough prosecutor.
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