Is Kamala Harris Underrated?

If Joe Biden steps aside for the Democratic presidential nomination — still a very big if — the favorite to replace him is Vice President Kamala Harris. In recently leaked post-debate polling from Open Labs , Harris polled better than Biden in matchups against Trump. In 2019, Dana Goodyear wrote in The New Yorker , “As a Black, female law-and-order Democrat, Harris creates a kind of cognitive dissonance.” The profile Harris inhabited then would be welcome in an election year where disorder is on voters’ minds and the Republicans are nominating a convicted felon. But Harris hasn’t inhabited that political profile for years. And since becoming Biden’s vice president the conventional wisdom on her has shifted: She’s gone from rising star — many thought her “the next Obama” — to political underachiever. So I’ve had a few questions about Harris. What accounted for the fast fall from grace after she took the vice presidency? What happened to the smart-on-crime prosecutor we once saw? What has the White House done — or not done — to build her profile? And are critics of Harris fair, or is she underrated now? I’m joined by Elaina Plott Calabro, a staff writer at The Atlantic who traveled w…