Even after Kamala Harris’s high-profile primary run and almost a full term as vice-president, many Americans are only just getting to know her. But Harris has been a fixture in California politics for decades, and Dan Morain, a veteran Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee reporter, had a front-row seat to her ascent. In his unauthorized 2021 biography Kamala’s Way, he explored her path from promising young lawyer to the White House, including stops at several powerful perches along the way. With Harris already having all but clinched the Democratic nomination, I spoke with Morain about what defines her as a politician, why she stumbled in 2020, and her opacity as a person.

As somebody who’s been following Kamala Harris for about 30 years, is there a particular through-line you’ve detected with her — a guiding philosophy or anything like that? Or is it more just that she is an adept politician who is good at reading particular moments?
She’s certainly a skilled politician, and she’s ambitious. But then, what politician isn’t ambitious? To me, one thing that is true about Kamala Harris is that she’s underestimated. She came out of pretty much nowhere to become district attorney. She had built a bit of a profile in San Francisco, but when she ran for D.A., she had very little name ID. And she was running against an incumbent who had quite a name in San Francisco. The Hallinan family was and is quite famous there. Nobody knew who Kamala Harris was.

And when she ran for attorney general in 2010, she was certainly the underdog against Republican Steve Cooley, who had been the district attorney in Los Angeles for three terms — and L.A. of course is the main population center of California. He was the front-runner and should have won.

2010 is the year of the tea party, a year when Republicans all around the country won legislative seats. There was this committee called the Republican State Leadership Committee. The organization raised $30 million that year, I think, and spent a million of it trying to block Harris from winning. And the reason was that they could tell that if she won in 2010, she’d be a significant player for years to come. In fact, in Kamala’s Way, I quote Cooley’s campaign manager Kevin Spillane telling his boss that this race is really not about attorney general; it’s about the vice-presidency. Kevin could see in 2010 that Kamala Harris might be a logical vice presidential pick.

Prescient!
One of the things that is interesting about her, and I think it’s relevant today, is that she’s really adept at clearing the field. When she ran for AG in 2010, she was one of half a dozen Democrats seeking the nomination. Jackie Speier, a member of Congress at the time, was contemplating entering the race, and Harris announced that she had $2.2 million in the bank. That dissuaded Jackie from getting in, or at least helped dissuade her.

When Harris runs for reelection as district attorney, she runs unopposed. And this is San Francisco. San Francisco politics is a real bloodsport. That she had cleared the field was pretty extraordinary, I think. Especially since she had had a bit of a rocky go there as DA over the........

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