How Kamala Harris’s First Presidential Campaign Unraveled Thanks to Health-Care Policy

She tried doing a lot of interviews in 2019 — and it ended badly.

During her first run for the White House, Kamala Harris hit the high-water mark on the night of June 27, 2019, when she mauled a flustered Joe Biden over his opposition to school busing in the 1970s. The California senator surged in polls overnight, from the mid single digits to 17 percent — putting her in second place and threatening Biden for front-runner status.

The problem for Harris was that the surge coincided with another moment that night — raising her hand to signal support for ending private health insurance — that drew more scrutiny of her incoherent health-care position. She would unravel in interviews on the topic and flub the release of a new health-care plan, and within six weeks, the same CNN poll that had her leaping into second place had her crashing back to 5 percent — tied for a distant fourth. Her campaign would never recover, and she was forced to drop out before Iowa.