Kamala Harris' sincerity problem

Backing off a debate statement about school desegregation is only her latest apparent flip-flop

Kamala Harris.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Spencer Platt/Getty Images, Ethan Miller/Getty Images, tampatra/iStock, Tatomm/iStock)

The Democratic presidential primary is pretty clearly a four-way race at this point. As per the Real Clear Politics poll average, Joe Biden is still out in front with 27 percent, with Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris tied for second with 14 percent, and Elizabeth Warren only a point behind them. The other 2,000 candidates are all down in the low single digits or lower.

Not long ago Harris was only doing half as well. Clearly she was the major beneficiary of the recent debates, especially her forceful confrontation with Biden over school desegregation. But afterwards, she backtracked on the issue, saying that in cases where school segregation is not the result of discriminatory laws, "any tool that is in the toolbox should be considered by a school district."

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.