Politics

Republicans’ outrage over Kamala Harris’ birthplace exposes a glaring double standard

Published

2 years ago

November 12, 2024

Republicans’ outrage over Kamala Harris’ birthplace exposes a glaring double standard

In what counts as one of the bizarre attacks of this year’s presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, stands accused of wrongly characterizing herself as a “daughter of Oakland.” According to an investigative report in The New York TimesHarris was born in the adjacent Berkeley, California.

Jesse Watters at Fox News went so far as to hold up Harris’ birth certificate with that Berkeley home address listed. As awful as that was, Watters using Harris’ birth certificate as some kind of gotcha was not only a reminder of the “birther” attacks on President Barack Obama, but it also revealed what this inquisition is really about: portraying Harris as sneaky, inauthentic and unworthy of trust.

Watters using Harris’ birth certificate revealed what this inquisition is really about: portraying Harris as sneaky, inauthentic and unworthy of trust.

Americans give a lot of attention to where a candidate is from and presidential candidates spend a lot of time emphasizing where they’re from — or at least emphasizing the place they’ve chosen to say they’re from. For example, as a candidate, and even as a president, Joe Biden has rarely missed an opportunity to mention his scrappy Scranton, Pennsylvania, roots. Yes, that’s where he was born, but Biden’s family relocated to Delaware when he was in elementary school. It’s likely that relatively few people know which cities in that state he called home as a child and teenager, but we know Biden eventually ended up in Wilmington where many residents affectionately refer to him as “Delaware Joe.”

All politicians, Harris included, are aware that the question of where they’re from is more about identity, or at least the identity we want to project, than geography. Home isn’t just a matter of where we say we’re from, it’s also about where others decide it makes the most sense for us to be from. If I tell you I’m from Detroit, then that conjures up not just associations, but expectations and explanations that are different than what they’d be if I told you I grew up in Boulder, Colorado. Geographers, city planners and urban designers call this place-based identity. Politicians call this useful.

As someone who was born in the Bay Area and then lived in Evanston, Illinois; Madison, Wisconsin; and MontrealCanada, before returning to the East Bay, there are a lot of places for Harris to gesture toward as potential homes and homes-away-from home. She chose Oakland.

Harris supporters like that she’s the celebrated daughter of a city we want to root for, too. They like the association for the same reason that her critics want to question it: it is politically useful, just like Biden’s beginning in gritty Scranton, or her running mate Tim Walz’s in small-town Nebraska. After all, the Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland in 1966 and organized a host of social services for low-income families such as legal aid, health clinics and free breakfast programs for kids. At least since then, Oakland has become synonymous with Black resistance, racial pride and self-reliance. It kind of reminds us of the underdog Harris says she is.

Barack Obama always put his Kansas roots (where his mother grew up) alongside his Hawaiian birthplace even as he claimed the South Side of Chicago as a home. Jeb Bush and George W. Bush shedding their ties to coastal Maine helped them get elected the governors of Florida and Texas respectively, and the Texan was twice elected president. Donald Trump is from Queens but has always wanted to be seen as the “king of Manhattan.”

Rightfully or not, a candidate’s hometown ends up symbolizing something profound about the individual, what the person stands for and, as importantly, whom the candidate will fight for. It’s why some of Harris’ Republican critics insist she was “raised in Canada.”

Harris may be fudging things slightly when she calls herself “the daughter of Oakland,” but she shouldn’t be singled out for it. Many people who grew up next to a big city call that bigger city home. Instead of asking whether it’s technically true that she’s from Oakland and whether she ought to be corrected for slighting Berkeley, we ought to be asking whether we put more demands on Black candidates to authenticate who they say they are, and whether their answers are more closely scrutinized.

Instead of asking whether it’s technically true that she’s from Oakland, we ought to be asking whether we put more demands on Black candidates to authenticate who they say they are.

By all indications, Oakland loves Harris and claims her back and doesn’t care where she went to primary school. Republicans who profess to be upset about it are, in keeping with Trump’s insulting attack on her identity, suggesting that she is falsely trying to claim Blackness. When she’s only doing what all politicians do: naming a place of origin that signals her politics. Yes, Harris gains bona fides from being associated with a city that symbolizes Black working class grit and activism, and not the image of white elitism and radicalism associated with San Francisco but especially Berkeley.

But JD Vance made a name for himself by highlighting his Appalachian roots and using that to illustrate how far he’s come even though Appalachia isn’t where he’s actually from.

Candidates such as Harris and Obama are subjected to more questions about their origins not because politicians as a rule give wholly truthful and clear declarations about their origins, but because they’re seen as not belonging in the first place.

Writer Zadie Smith”https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2009/02/26/speaking-in-tongues-2/” target=”_blank”> summed it up nicely in 2008 when she said that many of the public’s reservations about Obama stemmed from their inability to pinpoint where exactly he was from and who exactly he represented. To these people, he appeared too chameleonlike, too skilled at speaking to the many faces of American society. Smith said it was less a matter of Obama changing himself depending on his location, and more that he was from more than one place all at the same time, none truer or fuller than another.

“Where are you from?” is a loaded question that on its surface seems simple. The answer isn’t clear-cut for me, and it isn’t clear-cut for many of us. Are we talking about where I was born or where I grew up? What do we say if our family moved around a lot or if we spent some formative years abroad? We might answer differently depending on who’s asking, why we think they’re asking or what we feel comfortable sharing.

As for Harris, it’s not that important where home is according to her birth certificate. She had no say in that matter. Where she chooses to say she’s from tells us a lot more.

Robyn Autry

Robyn Autry is a sociology professor and director of the Center for the Study of Public Life at Wesleyan University. She is the author of “Desegregating the Past: The Public Life of Memory in the U.S. and South Africa.”

Politics

Poll: Republicans’ gas price problem is even worse than it seems

Published

4 hours ago

July 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Gas prices are high. Americans think they’re even higher.

Three in five Americans believe gas prices in their area have risen by more than they actually have, according to an analysis of new results from The Blue Light News Poll. It’s those perceptions that candidates will be running against this fall.

Voters’ anxieties about fuel prices could give Democrats a boost ahead of the midterms, further strengthening the Democratic voting base and putting strains on the MAGA coalition as the increasingly unpopular war in Iran drags on. A plurality of Americans — 46 percent — say the change in gas prices will impact how they plan to vote come November.

Most voters overestimated the change in gas prices in their area, according to the analysis of polling and granular pricing data provided by OPIS, a Dow Jones company that tracks gas prices. That includes majorities of voters who supported President Donald Trump and also those who supported former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Roughly one in four Americans say gas in their local area has risen by $3.00 or more. But no zip code has actually seen that degree of change on average in the year and a half since Trump took office, as of early July.

Frustrations over cost of living could be reinforcing existing negative views of the Trump administration: Harris voters are far more likely to overshoot the cost jumps than Trump voters, making it harder for Republicans to peel off Democratic voters.

And the analysis shows a fracture among Trump voters. Self-identified MAGA Republicans were more likely to underestimate cost increases than non-MAGA Republicans — another crack in the president’s winning coalition as Republicans scramble to hold it together for the midterms.

“It is a particularly tough dance that many Republican candidates will have to endure for the next three months,” said Arizona GOP strategist Barrett Marson. “How do you feel the pain of your voters without feeling the wrath of Donald Trump?”

What’s more, American’s perceptions do not quickly change even when prices do. The Blue Light News Poll asked about gas prices in both May, when they were near their peak, and July, when they had dipped.

The results were the same in both.

“President Trump and his energy team anticipated these temporary market disruptions, communicated them openly to the American people, and implemented an aggressive plan to mitigate any impacts,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers. “As the U.S. military degrades the terrorist Iranian regime’s ability to attack commercial vessels and disrupt the free flow of energy through the Strait of Hormuz, oil and gas prices will plummet back to pre-conflict levels.”

Gas prices could swing votes

Americans’ frustrations with prices and the economy overall are changing how they say they will vote in the fall.

Of the 46 percent of Americans who said gas prices will have an impact on their vote, just under 40 percent said they are considering voting for a different party than they normally would, including 49 percent of MAGA Republicans and 57 percent of non-MAGA Republicans.

“Three quarters of the country is confronting higher gas prices and feeling it,” said longtime Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson. “That leaves them … very vulnerable to the economic pain and very vulnerable to the economic argument the Democrats are going to make.”

To better understand public perception of gas prices, The Blue Light News Poll asked Americans how the price of gas in their area had changed since Trump took office. Respondents could choose between buckets like “$1 to $2 higher per gallon,” “$1 to $2 lower per gallon,” or say prices had stayed roughly the same.

More than three-fourths said gas prices in their area have gone up.

Using OPIS data, Blue Light News compared each respondent’s answer against the actual average cost of regular gas in their zip code during the first week Trump was in office and the week prior to the July poll, which was conducted by the independent polling organization Public First from July 12 to July 15.

That comparison revealed the difference between the pain the American public is feeling and where actual gas prices stand — and, in particular, how that pain is expressed differently among Democrats and Republicans. Roughly 70 percent of Harris voters and 54 percent of Trump voters overestimated the increase in gas prices in their area, according to Blue Light News’s analysis.

“Democrats are highly motivated,” as a voting base, Marson said. “The longer the war goes on, probably the less motivated Republicans will be.”

The perception of higher gas prices is linked to how people see the economy — and who they blame for it.

Across the country, 57 percent of Americans say the cost of living is worse than they “can ever remember it being.” Those who overestimate gas price increases had more than twice the odds of agreeing with that statement, even after controlling for demographics and their 2024 vote.

Similarly, a plurality of Americans — 43 percent — blame Trump more than former President Joe Biden for the state of the economy overall. Those who overestimated their local increase in gas prices had nearly twice the odds of saying the same, compared with those who perceived the change in gas prices correctly or who underestimated the change.

It’s already affecting the battlegrounds

In the country’s most competitive races, Republicans will have to answer for the perceived cost pressures of rising gas prices more often than Democrats.

Thirteen of the most competitive districts have experienced gas price increases higher than the national average, according to Blue Light News’s analysis. Of those, nine are currently represented by Republicans.

In California’s 22nd District, where Republican incumbent Rep. David Valadao will face off against progressive political newcomer Randy Villegas, average prices across the district had gone up $1.17 by early July — the third highest increase of any district, according to Blue Light News’s analysis.

Villegas said in an interview that he thought frustration over gas prices would mobilize turnout in the fall, driven by how the cost of gas is “tied to every other thing.”

“It’s the cost of gas when you’re driving to the grocery store, when you’re driving to, you know, see a doctor,” he said. Or, the cost of gas when driving 7 to 8 hours away to “go get cheaper health care.”

Valadao did not respond to requests for comment.

In Colorado’s 8th District, where gas prices have risen by $0.73 on average since Trump took office, Republican incumbent Rep. Gabe Evans blamed local Democratic policies for increased costs more than the Iran war.

While “what’s happening halfway around the globe has some impact on global energy prices,” Evans said, high gas prices in the district are “a direct result of the local economic policies — the anti-energy policies — of the state Democrats who run the state of Colorado.”

But The Blue Light News Poll results from this month show voters don’t necessarily feel the same. Roughly 63 percent of Americans selected “the war with Iran” as the primary reason why gas prices have increased since Trump took office, including 59 percent of Trump voters and 70 percent of Harris voters.

By the middle of May, the average price of gas across the country reached its highest point of the Trump administration to date: $4.50 per gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In July, average prices dipped to $3.78 per gallon, the lowest average price since March.

Still, in both months, more than 75 percent of Americans said gas prices had gone up, Blue Light News’s polls show. And in both months, roughly 23 percent said prices had gone up by $3.00 or more.

This week, Trump said the upcoming midterms would not impact how he goes about fighting the war with Iran. “I can’t think about that having to do with this,” he said, referring to the elections. “I think people are very impressed.”

Politics

Capitol agenda: House GOP budget faces Senate reality check

Published

11 hours ago

July 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Capitol agenda: House GOP budget faces Senate reality check

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been frank about the rocky road the reconciliation effort faces and careful not to guarantee he’ll be successful…
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