Vice President Kamala Harris has discussed her experience as a prosecutor in a few different ways over the years. In her 2003 campaign for San Francisco district attorney, she pledged to increase the city’s conviction rates and leaned into public fears of violent crime. 

In her 2010 run to become the first woman attorney general of California, she called for being “smart on crime” by finding alternatives for those who commit nonviolent offenses. She still encouraged a “lock ’em up” mentality for serious and violent crimes.

During her first presidential campaign in 2019, she positioned herself in the crowded Democratic field as an advocate for vulnerable people who fought to fix a broken criminal justice system.

Now, in her latest bid for the presidency, Harris is more forcefully declaring that no one is above the law — even former President Donald Trump.

Following President Joe Biden’s announcement on July 21 that he would end his reelection campaign to make way for Harris’ nomination, her team quickly sent out a press release framing one of her narratives for this race: “Kamala Harris stands up to fraudsters and criminals. Donald Trump is a convicted felon.” 

For many Americans, the former president’s criminal history raises fears about abuses of power in the nation’s highest office. Harris is leaning into her legal background as a clear contrast to Trump at a time when public concerns about crime remain high, despite data indicating a decrease in crime rates.

That approach is facing criticism from some organizers focused on criminal legal issues who say using words like “felon” and “criminal” is a fear-mongering tactic that dehumanizes and marginalizes people who have criminal records — and who don’t have Trump’s wealth and status. For some, the framing also resurfaces long-standing critiques of Harris’ policies as a prosecutor.

Last week Sheena Meade, CEO of a reform effort called The Clean Slate Initiative, released a letter addressed to campaign strategists and media organizations that calls attention to the potential harm of these characterizations.

“This language plays on stereotypes and reduces people with records to be defined solely by one thing that has happened in their lives,” Meade’s letter stated. “We can make judgments about behavior, decision-making, and values that someone’s crimes reflect without resorting to harmful labels.”

Since Trump’s term as president ended in 2021, he has faced more than 70 criminal charges in state and federal courts, ranging from racketeering to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government. While the former president has received broad condemnation from voters and public officials for his indictments, words like “felon,” “thug” and “criminal” are more commonly used against Black and brown people, and play into historic tropes that depict people of color as violent.

In her 2024 presidential campaign, Harris appears to be walking a delicate line as she tries to expand her reach with moderate and undecided voters while avoiding further alienating progressive voters who have been strong critics of Biden. 

Recent polling by Vera Action, a nonprofit that advocates against mass incarceration, found that voters respond better to messaging that focuses on solutions rather than tough-on-crime rhetoric or calling Trump a “convicted criminal,” said Insha Rahman, the group’s director.

One major sore point among progressives is Biden’s history of pushing for tough-on-crime policies and his support for the wide-ranging 1994 crime bill that aimed to address “predators on our streets” — in Biden’s words — in part by increasing funding to add new police officers and creating minimum prison sentences that had a disproportionate impact on Black and low-income people.

At the time, members of the Congressional Black Caucus criticized Biden’s version and introduced an alternative bill that included more investments in crime prevention and intervention. Ultimately, after facing pushback from Republicans, a majority of the Congressional Black Caucus members voted for Biden’s bill.  

A 1994 Gallup survey indicates that 58 percent of Black Americans also supported the bill, compared with 49 percent of White Americans, though the bill still had vocal critics. The crime bill became law in 1994 and is often cited as part of Biden’s legacy on criminal justice.

Violent crime remains a focus for Black voters, according to polling. One 2022 report by the Pew Research Center found that about 81 percent of Black registered voters said violent crime is very important to their midterm vote. More broadly, voters consistently list crime and violence as a top issue. That reality could work in Harris’ favor as she considers how to balance messaging about her career as a prosecutor.

“There’s an expectation that Black voters are going to turn out and support her candidacy, no matter what. Period. And so her campaign could believe that there’s some wiggle room in terms of how they present her as a prosecutor who can defeat Donald Trump,” said Evelyn M. Simien, a professor of political science and director of Africana Studies at the University of Connecticut.

Simien added that she believes Harris’ particular “prosecutor versus felon” narrative is an appeal to “a specific audience composed of primarily White voters, who are anti-Trump, or just voters that oppose his candidacy based on his criminal background.”

But that narrative can be harmful in unintended ways, advocates say. 

Twenty years ago, Meade was a single mom living paycheck to paycheck, and was arrested after bouncing an $87 check. The stigma of that record followed her, affecting her ability to obtain education and housing, she said. 

Her experience highlights the long-term hardships people with criminal arrests or convictions face. Meade’s organization has successfully advocated for laws in 12 states that create a process to automatically expunge some criminal records. Meade said it’s important to remember that the majority of people who come into contact with the criminal legal system do not have the privilege, wealth or power that Trump has.

“If they could talk that way about someone who has held a presidency seat, who the hell am I? Who are the other millions of people?” Meade said.

When considering Harris’ campaign messaging, the political landscape is different for her in 2024 than when she first ran for president in 2019, said Jenn Jackson, an assistant professor of political science at Syracuse University who grew up in Oakland, California, and observed Harris’ early legal career. 

In 2019, Harris was one of two women of color vying for the presidency among a field of more than 20 other Democrats. In that position, she had to be more strategic about her prosecutor image while pushing back against racist stereotypes that depict outspoken women of color, particularly Black women, as too aggressive or manly, Jackson said. 

The threat of racism and misogyny still exists today, but Harris has gained more trust and visibility among the public as the first woman to sit as vice president, which gives her more freedom in the 2024 campaign to speak strongly about her prosecutor history. “She has space now to win votes among people who now can say, ‘She’s tough on crime. She’s stronger than Trump,’” Jackson said. 

“I want people to really remember that Kamala Harris likes being a cop,” they continued. “This is actually her bread and butter, right? So I want to be clear here that this is not a pivot. This is Kamala.”

Though Harris previously referred to herself as a progressive prosecutor, her record on advocating for less punitive and more rehabilitative measures is mixed. 

One of her signature efforts as the district attorney in San Francisco was a diversion program for young adults charged with non-violent offenses. The “back on track” initiative provided job training and placement, assistance with education, mental health services and other opportunities in an effort to reduce recidivism. 

As district attorney, Harris advocated against the death penalty, but as attorney general she appealed a court ruling in 2014 that would have effectively ended capital punishment in California.

“I am appealing the court’s decision because it is not supported by the law, and it undermines important protections that our courts provide to defendants. This flawed ruling requires appellate review,” Harris said at the time. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit agreed with Harris and overturned the lower court ruling, keeping capital punishment in the state until 2019, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order placing a moratorium on the practice.

While campaigning for California attorney general, Harris pushed for a state law that went into effect in 2011, and created a criminal misdemeanor charge for the parents of habitually truant kids, those who miss 10 percent of school days in a year without a valid excuse. Under the policy, which still exists today, convicted parents can face up to a year in jail and a maximum fine of $2,000.

Harris was criticized as attorney general for requesting that an incarcerated transgender person be denied gender affirming surgery. She has since taken “full responsibility,” she said, for that legal brief. 

Harris maintains strong support among LGBTQ+ advocates who applaud her early support for marriage equality as San Francisco’s district attorney, her work to establish a hate crimes unit in the DA’s office dedicated to protecting queer teenagers and her push to end the so-called gay and trangender “panic defense” — a legal strategy in which defendants accused of violent crimes cite the gender identity or sexual orientation of their victims to excuse their violence.

With a little more than two weeks until the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and three months until Election Day, it’s unclear whether the specifics of her record or the “prosecutor versus felon” campaign strategy will sway voters.

A broad coalition of Black voters, White voters, Latinx voters and LGBTQ+ voters have organized to raise millions for her campaign. In a press call last week hosted by organizers with the Movement for Black Lives, Rukia Lumumba recognized that Harris “is not a movement candidate,” but expressed confidence that organizers have an opportunity to hold her accountable and push her on issues.

“The nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris for president has moved our communities from a place of outright fear, embarrassment and disengagement to excitement and participation,” Lumumba said. 

While “Black people are not ignorant — we know her record on policing issues — our people and our members are encouraged that Vice President Harris can defeat right conservative White supremacist authoritarianism,” she continued. 

As Harris’ campaign continues to unfold, Rahman with Vera Action said Harris should focus on her values, her public safety record and potential for presidential leadership, rather than resorting to problematic catchphrases or name-calling.

“There’s a choice of if she’s going to go tough-on-crime prosecutor, which the ‘top cop versus convicted felon’ framing falls right into,” Rahman said. “Or if she’s going to say: ‘Kamala Harris is for the people and stands for safety, accountability and justice, and Donald Trump is corrupt.’”