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Harris emerges as frontrunner to oust Trump

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Washington: Early 2020 presidential candidate Kamala Harris introduced herself to American voters Monday by drawing a sharp contrast with Donald Trump, offering a robust defence of her progressive positions a day after formally declaring her White House bid.


By launching her campaign a year before any primary votes are cast, the Democratic senator from California leapfrogs several party luminaries waiting in the wings, and a few already in the race, to become the de facto frontrunner.


It is a burgeoning field that may ultimately feature dozens of candidates seeking to oust President Donald Trump.


Harris immediately took her campaign to Iowa, the state that votes first in the nominating process, holding a televised town hall from Des Moines where she eviscerated the Trump administration for “lighting that fire” of racial division and seeking to “vilify” young immigrants.


“There is a lot of work to do,” she told a crowd at Drake University, deftly handling questions from health care to criminal justice reform to gun safety to the war in Afghanistan. A crowd of more than 20,000 watched her kick off her campaign Sunday in Oakland, California. But her prime-time town hall brought her into the living rooms of many more Americans.


Complicating the launch, billionaire former Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz said hours after her announcement that he is seriously considering entering the race — as an independent.


The self-described “lifelong Democrat” told CBS news show 60 Minutes that he will run as a “centrist independent outside of the two-party system.” Not only is Trump unqualified to be president, Schultz said, but Republicans and Democrats are failing the American people by engaging daily in “revenge politics.” Schultz’s announcement drew sharp rebukes from Democrats.


— AFP



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