US Polls 2024: The 47 seconds that propelled Kamala Harris to national prominence

A debate reshaped everything for Harris (X: KamalaHarris)

Vice President Kamala Harris’s narrow victory in 2010 which saw her become Attorney General of California was a pivotal moment that not only saved her political career but also set her on a path to national prominence. The story of a specific moment in a debate, which hinged on a single question and answer, changed the course of her career. In an article, The New York Times recalled those 47 seconds as a reminder of the unpredictable nature of politics.

A Rising Star Facing a Daunting Challenge

In 2010, Kamala Harris embarked on a political journey that would prove to be one of the most defining moments of her career. At the time, Harris, then 45, was seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party. Journalist Gwen Ifill had even dubbed her "the female Barack Obama." Despite her burgeoning reputation, Harris faced significant obstacles in her bid to become California's attorney general. The political climate was dominated by the Tea Party, and Harris, a San Francisco liberal, struggled to shed the label that many in conservative circles, including Donald J. Trump, wielded as an epithet.

Harris's opponent, Steve Cooley, was no ordinary challenger. A well-respected and popular Los Angeles County district attorney, Cooley was known for his evenhanded approach and corruption-busting efforts. As the election entered its final stretch, Cooley was either tied or narrowly ahead in the polls, buoyed by his popularity in Los Angeles, California's most populous Democratic stronghold.

With time and money running out, Harris faced a seemingly insurmountable challenge. But in a debate on the first Tuesday of October, a mere 47 seconds would change the trajectory of her political career.

The Fateful Debate: Cooley’s Misstep

The sole debate of the 2010 attorney general race, held in a practice courtroom at the University of California, Davis, drew little attention. The debate did not even air live on television, and the audience was limited. However, what transpired during that debate would become a pivotal moment.

During the debate, Los Angeles Times reporter Jack Leonard posed a question to Cooley about "double-dipping" — the practice of drawing both a public salary and a public pension simultaneously. Cooley, who was already earning $292,300 as the district attorney, was asked if he planned to take both a pension and a salary as attorney general, which would push his earnings to over $400,000.

Cooley's response was blunt and honest: "Yes, I do. I earned it." He then added, "I definitely earned whatever pension rights I have, and I will certainly rely upon that to supplement the very low, incredibly low salary that’s paid to the attorney general."

The response was met with shock from the debate's panelists, reports the New York Times. "It was tone-deaf," said Kevin Riggs, the debate’s moderator. "It was jaw-dropping," echoed Harris’s chief strategist, Averell “Ace” Smith. Even Cooley himself, in hindsight, recognized the mistake, admitting in a recent interview that "a lot of people said, ‘You should have dodged that one, Steve.’"

The report says Harris remained silent during Cooley's response, letting the moment speak for itself. When Riggs offered her a chance to comment, she simply laughed and said, "Go for it, Steve! You earned it!" Her restraint allowed Cooley’s words to resonate, setting the stage for what would come next.

The Campaign’s Strategic Shift: A Devastating Ad

Immediately after the debate, Harris's campaign team recognised the significance of Cooley's blunder. "We looked at each other," recalled Brian Brokaw, Harris’s campaign manager, "and it’s sometimes hard to tell in a room how something lands, and we said to each other, ‘That was pretty bad, right?’"

The campaign's ad maker, Mark Putnam, was brought in to assess the debate footage. Upon viewing it, he was convinced: "We just won the campaign." Putnam quickly cut an ad featuring Leonard’s question, Cooley’s unguarded response, and a simple but powerful message: “$150,000 a year isn’t enough?” The ad ended with the screen fading to black, highlighting the disparity between Cooley’s potential earnings and the average California household income of $54,280 at the time.

There was initial reluctance within the Harris campaign to air the ad without testing its impact in a poll. But as Ace Smith noted, they didn’t have the luxury of time or resources. The campaign was nearly broke, with less than $850,000 in the bank and more than $100,000 in debts. Despite the financial strain, the team decided to push forward, focusing the ad buy exclusively in Los Angeles, Cooley’s home turf. The hope was to chip away at his local support base.

Harris, who had hoped to close her campaign with positive messaging about her record and vision, ultimately agreed to the all-negative strategy. "This is eternally to Kamala Harris’s credit," said Smith. "She literally bought into shoving all the chips into the middle of the table," NYT quoted.

The Republican Counterattack and Democratic Resilience

As the Harris campaign aired its attack ad, national Republicans, sensing the threat Harris posed as a rising star, launched a last-minute counteroffensive. They spent $1 million on ads in Los Angeles, featuring the mother of a slain police officer criticising Harris for refusing to seek the death penalty for her son’s killer. The Republican effort was led by Chris Jankowski, who acknowledged that their strategy was to "kill Hercules in the crib."

But Harris had powerful allies of her own. President Barack Obama, facing nationwide congressional losses, prioritised a late-October rally in Los Angeles, where he urged the crowd of 37,000 to support Harris. "I want everybody to do right by her," Obama declared, reinforcing Harris’s campaign at a crucial moment.

As the election drew closer, Cooley’s team warned him of a potential Democratic surge. The collapse of the Republican ticket, particularly gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s campaign, further complicated his chances. "The polling was just going south," recalled Kevin Spillane, Cooley’s top strategist.

Election Night: A Dramatic Finish

The report said that the election night was tense and uncertain. Cooley initially took the lead, prompting him to declare victory prematurely, a move his strategist advised against. The San Francisco Chronicle followed suit, publishing a headline that read, “Cooley beats Harris.” Meanwhile, at her own campaign party, Harris and her team stayed up late, tracking the returns. As the night wore on, the results from Los Angeles County began to shift in Harris’s favour.

By the next morning, the race was too close to call. Over the next three weeks, the final results trickled in, and Harris eventually emerged victorious by a margin of less than 75,000 votes, or 0.85%. It was one of the narrowest statewide victories in California’s modern history.

Harris’s late advertising blitz in Los Angeles had paid off. Internal polling from August had shown Cooley leading in the county by 10 points; by election day, Harris won it by 14 points. The turnaround was a testament to the effectiveness of the double-dipping ad and the strategic decisions made in the campaign’s final days.

Reflecting on a Pivotal Moment

According to the NYT report, the 2010 attorney general race was a defining moment for Kamala Harris. "That was as close to a near-death experience for a political career as you can get," said Chris Jankowski, the Republican strategist who had led the effort to defeat her. Had Harris lost that race, it’s likely she wouldn’t have ascended to the national stage, where she now stands as a potential first woman president of the United States.

Years later, Harris’s victory is seen as anything but inevitable. “Everyone writes history like it’s all inevitable,” said Smith. “Her first statewide win was anything but.”

Cooley, in retrospect, acknowledged the impact of Harris’s campaign strategy. “The ads were very effective,” he conceded, though he still attributed his loss more to Whitman’s failed gubernatorial bid than to Harris’s tactics.

In a final anecdote that encapsulates the race’s significance, Cooley invited Jack Leonard, the reporter who had asked the fateful debate question, to a meal months after the election. During their meal, Cooley reached across the table, shook Leonard’s hand, and said, “If you hadn’t asked that question, I would have to be up in Sacramento.”