Maybe the rhetoric was different in your own circles, but the area I live in is mostly conservative. With that, many of my dear friends are as well. Whenever politics came up our discussions never got heated, but we clearly disagreed on some things. I heard multiple times from many of these friends that they think Kamala Harris was an under qualified candidate.
I would press the issue a little and ask them why, but they never had an answer. They would get flustered and say something along the lines of “I just dont know enough about the topic so I cant really say”. So at that point appear to just be repeating political rhetoric since they couldnt give me an answer. Like her or not, the way I see it, nothing about her seems unqualified. She has a law degree from a reputable university, spent many years practicing law including being the California Attourney general, and spent 4 years as the vice president. In my eyes, just about the only thing she could do to make her more “qualified” is if she had experience serving in the military.
So I guess my question has 2 parts. 1. Is this a similar talking point many of you had in your communities? And 2. If so, what are the reasons you believe her to be unqualified?
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Those who said she was an underqualified Presidential candidate probably considered her underqualified to be Vice president as well. As far as I know, there has never been another Vice President whose previous highest office was a state attorney general. Most Presidents and Vice Presidents have held a seat in Congress or been Governor of a state. So being an attorney general doesn’t make her particularly qualified to be Vice President. Being a bad, underqualified Vice President doesn’t make her particularly qualified to be President.
That being said, I would guess that most of those people were not talking about her on-paper qualifications, such as which offices she has held, but her competence in performing the duties of those offices.
EDIT: I forgot about the fact that she was a Senator. That put her at similar qualifications to many other candidates for President or Vice President. However, I think her competence in her offices is still the most relevant factor to most people, not her on-paper qualifications.
She has failed up her entire career. She was a DEI hire
I haven’t heard so much the underqualified part as there are no qualifications to be President. I heard plenty of criticizing because she “slept her way’ into politics due to her relationship with Willie Brown.
The other main criticisms are talking word salad (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdSLh_GP9L8), and being very phony. Her interviews were very controlled environments and scripted out, which helped with the world salad part, but not with the phony part.
As far as her policies you could find her pretty much supporting any policy if you just look enough through her speeches. She would pretty much say whatever someone told her to say to get the most votes.
The final criticism is that she was not representing the common people or the working class. Her few months leading up to the election was bringing out one celebrity after another to connect with voters, and it did the opposite.
As far as connecting with men, White Dudes for Harris (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJbIMF8dTVA) perfectly represents the failure of Harris and the Democratic Party in general to connecting with men.
I’ve heard plenty of people in my community say Kamala Harris is unqualified. But I think that point deserves a little more unpacking.
If we’re talking about her résumé alone ,then no, she’s not unqualified. She has a law degree, served as a prosecutor, became California’s Attorney General, and then a U.S. Senator. Those are serious roles that take experience and ability to hold. I’ll give credit where it’s due, she’s put in the work to be on the national stage.
But for many of us, the issue isn’t her résumé ,it’s her message, her tone, and the broader political culture she represents. That’s where she starts to feel “unqualified” in a deeper sense ,not in experience, but in leadership, vision, and connection to everyday Americans.
Here’s what I mean:
Democrats, including Harris, have leaned hard into identity politics. It’s not that diversity is unimportant , it is. But when every conversation is framed through race, gender, or group identity, it starts to feel like they’re more interested in symbolic wins than practical solutions. People want to be treated as individuals, not sorted into demographic boxes. That approach alienates moderates and conservatives who believe leadership should be about ideas, competence, and results .not just representation.
Harris often struggled to articulate a clear, grounded message that felt authentic and unifying. Her public speaking sometimes comes off as overly scripted, vague, or even evasive. That matters, especially in national leadership. In times of uncertainty, people want leaders who speak plainly, show confidence, and demonstrate clarity of purpose. That’s something many of us feel she lacks.
Many of the priorities Harris emphasizes , like climate rhetoric, “equity” frameworks, and soft on crime policies, just don’t speak to the concerns of working class, suburban, or rural Americans. When inflation, public safety, border security, and parental rights are top of mind, hearing leaders focus on pronouns or symbolic firsts doesn’t feel serious. It feels disconnected from reality.
It’s uncomfortable to say, but it’s part of the conversation: some people perceive her as having been chosen more for optics than merit. Whether that’s fair or not, when a campaign heavily markets a candidate as “the first” of something ,rather than focusing on what they bring to the table ,it creates a lingering sense that politics is being driven more by PR than by substance.
At the end of the day, leadership isn’t just about having a strong résumé, it’s about knowing how to connect with people, communicate clearly, and unite a country that’s deeply divided. Kamala Harris may check the professional boxes, but for many of us, she hasn’t demonstrated the kind of vision, steadiness, or broad appeal that national leadership demands. When identity becomes the centerpiece instead of ideas, you lose the middle. And if Democrats don’t understand that, they’ll keep losing more than just conservative votes ,they’ll keep losing moderates too.
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“They never had an answer” i doubt that. I think you probably just ignored or discounted their answer. She is the quintessential example of someone who has titles, but no accomplishments. Someone who has been a US Senator, VP, Attorney General, etc should be able to articulate…something. She was clearly unable to articulate anything and constantly repositioned herself based on the prevailing political winds. She has no accomplishments and no fundamental understanding of how anything works.
She’s a corrupt shill, not just unqualified.
Because she’s a woman and person of colour
No one voted for her to be the presidential candidate, she often didn’t answer questions directly, coming up with a word salad answers that no one understood. She had to have her interview with 60 minutes edited because answers to some of the questions made her look bad , she was the “border Czar” and the border was an absolute shitshow (although many would consider this to be intentional, so maybe not her fault).
She has many communication gaffes which make her sound ridiculous…
“It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day.”
“The significance of the passage of time, right? The significance of the passage of time. So when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time.”
Not to mention her constantly changing accents depending on her audience.
There are tons more things, but honestly, that is more than enough.
So yeah, all of that adds up to unqualified. Compare her to someone like Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton and you can see the stark difference.
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Because she is a moron who can’t answer simple questions with a serious response and not start giggling, has never accomplished anything that meant anything other than getting elected on race and skin color, got her start in politics by blowing Willie Brown, finished last and dropped out first from the primary because nobody wanted her, and the only reason Joe Biden picked her was because he knew nobody would want to get rid of him if it meant she would be president. She is not competent enough to manage a Wendy’s. Heels up Harris is not going to get rehabilitated in the mind of serious people. Which you don’t seem to be one.
For me, personally, it was during the democrat debate. Tulsi Gabbard ripped her to pieces, asked very valid questions and Kamala responded with a word salad that said a lot without saying anything at all.
My opinion of her never recovered.
It’s not about her resume, because on paper she’s accomplished enough.
The main thing is she can’t speak unscripted, she talks in a way that makes her appear very unintelligent, she’s a highly political animal who will change positions for power, and it’s not clear her resume is even built on merit when there are accusations of political connections and favors.
Simply, her word salads. She can speak so many words and say absolutely nothing.
https://youtu.be/yDBRhKBLfqQ?si=Whliqc3eqVjXIgNU
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Someone who has never won a competitive election is not well-qualified to be a major party candidate for president. She had no clue about how to win a competitive race because as a lifelong California politician every position was handed to her by her party. That doesn’t mean she couldn’t have won, but she clearly wasn’t smart enough to figure it out.
Her record in Cali said it all. Plus, she hid Biden’s decline, and involved or not, part of the Biden Crime Family. Nothing innovative, typical tax and spend, Springsteenish “gated community” Democrat.
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