by Naomi Lim & Joseph Simonson | December 03, 2019

Kamala Harris has bowed out of contention for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

Hours before Harris announced she was exiting the Democratic primary, her campaign canceled a New York City fundraiser that was expected to have a number of her wealthy bundlers in attendance. At the time, Harris's team said the cancellation was because of a "personal matter" and offered no further explanation.

In November, she closed down her entire New Hampshire campaign operations, in a bid to shift all her resources to the Iowa caucuses. Weeks earlier, Harris fired dozens of staffers from her campaign headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland. By the end of the third quarter, Harris's campaign had the highest cash burn rate of any other candidate running for office, spending 122.9% of all dollars donated.

The California senator, 55, drew early comparisons to former President Barack Obama and his meteoric rise to the White House, not only for her background but also for the crowd of 20,000-plus people who attended her official announcement event in Oakland, California, in January. Between 15,000 and 17,000 people showed up for Obama's launch in Springfield, Illinois, in February 2007.

Harris, whose father is from Jamaica and late mother was from India, experienced a surge in polling and fundraising following the opening debates in Miami in June after she confronted front-runner Joe Biden for touting his work with known segregationists over the course of his 36 years in the Senate and his stance on federally mandated busing in the 1960s and 1970s. However, the two-term California state attorney general and former San Francisco district attorney's inconsistent performance on the campaign trail squandered that momentum.

That same month, polls showed Harris's numbers dropping precipitously in New Hampshire while also remaining stagnant in Iowa, often registering only single-digit support from Democrats there.

The former prosecutor's presidential bid was hamstrung by her failure to counter attacks regarding contradictions in her record, including her past positions on truancy and prostitution. Her flip-flop in support of Democratic rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders's Medicare for All proposal and struggle to sell her own healthcare plan also contributed to her relegation to the middle of the historically large primary pack.

Harris, who repeatedly downplayed speculation she'd agree to be Biden's running mate, suspends her campaign with a boost in national profile. She returns to the Senate and her plum posts on the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees, the former of which will allow the freshman senator to have a pivotal role in any future Supreme Court confirmation battles, keeping her in the limelight in case she wants to aim for the White House again.

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