Liberal pundits jumped on the issue immediately after the Californian senator bowed out, blaming dwindling campaign funds, saying they felt enraged that two white, male billionaires had bought their way into the 2020 race and sucked the oxygen out of Harris’ once-promising campaign.
Former Newark Mayor Cory Booker is still in the race but has failed to make a splash in the polls and is unlikely to qualify for the next Democratic presidential primary debate on Dec. 19.
“It’s really f–ked up that straight white male billionaires (plural) are going to qualify for the next debate while Kamala Harris is leaving the race. Like, immensely,” wrote Adam Nathaniel Peck from the Center for American Progress policy institute.
“Very fitting that Kamala would drop out and the myriad of rich white dudes whose names people can’t even remember are staying in,” journalist Laura Bassett added.
Latecomer billionaire Tom Steyer, who entered the race in July, qualified for the debate on Tuesday morning, while Michael Bloomberg overtook Harris in the polls this week after launching his White House bid just one week ago.
Both men have pledged to spend vast amounts of their personal fortunes on advertising and campaigning.
Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Tom Steyer, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg have all qualified.
Other liberals took thinly veiled swipes at Buttigieg, with political commentator Sally Kohn calling Harris’ withdrawal a “bad look” for Democrats.
“Obviously I’m no centrist but it’s downright effed up that smart, compelling, *very* experienced, centrist Democratic candidates of color are floundering while a smart but wildly inexperienced, centrist white mayor of teeny tiny city is surging,” Kohn tweeted, referencing Buttigieg, who is the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, population 102,000.
“Bad look, Democrats,” she added.
Julian Castro, another Democratic presidential wannabe who has failed to move the needle, waded into the debate on Tuesday afternoon, sharing a tweet criticizing the party’s whiteness and caucus process.
“If the Democratic Party wants a field that’s representative of its members and its voters, it probably shouldn’t have two states as white as Iowa and New Hampshire vote first every year,” read the missive from Nate Silver, the editor-in-chief of news website FiveThirtyEight.
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