Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign is positioning her as a “tough-on-crime” candidate, but many of her deep-pocketed supporters have previously funded efforts to defund the police and install lenient prosecutors. According to CNN, Harris’s advisers are focusing on her career as a district attorney and attorney general in California, despite her donors’ controversial backgrounds.
“A vote for Kamala is a vote to allow illegal immigrants from all over the world to invade our country, a vote to defund the police, abolish ICE and bail violent criminals out of jail,” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
George Soros, a major backer of criminal justice reform, and his son Alex endorsed Harris after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Soros’s philanthropic network has donated millions to anti-police groups, including those aligned with Black Lives Matter, and supported prosecutors with lenient views on crime. The Open Society Foundations, led by Soros, contributed tens of millions to such groups in 2021.
Prominent prosecutors supported by Soros have faced backlash. Former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, supported by Soros-aligned groups, was recalled in 2022 for not prosecuting various crimes and releasing repeat offenders. Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, another Soros-backed prosecutor, faces reelection challenges amid criticism of his handling of crime.
Major Democratic donors Quinn Delaney and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings have also backed Harris. Delaney and Hastings supported the elections of Boudin and Gascon and opposed measures that would have empowered law enforcement. Hastings donated $7 million to a pro-Harris PAC, his largest political contribution, while Delaney contributed $1 million to a pro-Harris super PAC.
Despite her campaign’s tough-on-crime messaging, Harris has a history of supporting criminal justice reform. In 2020, she praised the defund the police movement and supported Los Angeles’s decision to cut its police budget by $150 million.
Other wealthy Californians supporting Harris include Karla Jurvetson, a significant donor to left-wing members of Congress and groups advocating for defunding the police, and Andrea Dew-Steele, who has been laying the groundwork for Harris’s campaign. Dew-Steele founded Emerge America, an organization dedicated to electing women to office, including several liberal prosecutors supported by Soros’s network.
Brian Fallon, Harris’s campaign spokesperson, tweeted “defund the police” in June 2020. Harris has spent much of her career balancing appeasing leftist supporters and maintaining ties with law enforcement.
