Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) responded on Sunday after her Democratic presidential challenger Pete Buttigieg stated that the primary race is beginning to winnow down to only two candidates, himself and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
“Well, I think that’s just, that it’s naive for him to think that at this point that the fate of this election has been determined,” Harris told CBS News correspondent Ed O’Keefe. “Just look at history. He might need to review to know that what’s happening right now is not necessarily determinative of the outcome.”
Harris’ remarks come after the South Bend, Indiana, mayor appeared on Showtime’s “The Circus,” where he suggested that voters may ultimately end up having to decide between himself or Warren to represent the Democratic Party in the general election.
.@edokeefe reports on the latest in the #2020 race directly from the Caucus state and takes a closer look at @KamalaHarris ' ground game in Iowa. She tells O'Keefe she's "all in" pic.twitter.com/pRRFxHhGXB
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) November 3, 2019
“I think this is getting to be a two-way,” Buttigieg said. “It’s early to say it. I’m not saying it is a two-way, but I think – ”
“But you see that? You see it’s coming into focus: you and Warren,” host John Heilemann interrupted.
“Yeah, and certainly a world where we’re getting somewhere is that world, where it’s coming down to the two of us,” Buttigieg replied. “Obviously, there’s a lot of candidates and a lot of things can happen, but I think that as that happens, the contrasts become clear. Look, the contrasts are real. They’re substantive, respectful policy contrasts, but they’re real.”
Harris’ campaign, which has been described recently as hemorrhaging cash, has been dramatically restructuring its staff nationwide, including both layoffs as well as redeployments, according to a memo obtained by Politico. The California lawmaker laid off all of her New Hampshire field organizers and is closing all three field offices in the state as she has been struggling to gain traction. The campaign tried to tamp down alarm bells of an impending end to her presidential run, stating that the move is simply “a strategic decision to realign resources and go all-in on Iowa.”
While Harris’ campaign pivots to focus on winning Iowa, the presidential hopeful has slipped into sixth place in the latest poll coming out of the state. Harris is tied with entrepreneur Andrew Yang at 3%, according to a poll of likely voters conducted by Siena College/New York Times in late October. Buttigieg, on the other hand, is at 18% and within the margin of error of the frontrunners.
Harris, who has previously vowed to achieve a top three finish in the Hawkeye State, repeatedly dodged O’Keefe’s attempts to inquire on whether she still has that goal.
“I’m all-in in Iowa, I’m all in,” Harris said. ” … we are going to end up in Iowa doing very well.”
Buttigieg later responded to Harris’s comments by telling The New York Times that “she’s right.”
“Look, where we are now is three months ahead of the Iowa primary, and the, or the Iowa Caucuses, and the Iowa Caucuses are just the beginning,” he said.
As of publication, Harris sits at just under 5% support among Democratic primary voters nationwide, according to the RealClearPolitics national polling average. She has not hit double digits in the polls since August 2019.