Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has said she no longer endorses a ban on fracking, but political strategists and energy
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has said she no longer endorses a ban on fracking, but political strategists and energy experts say the sudden policy shift will do little to move the needle with key voters in November.
Harris said in 2020 there is “no question” she would end fracking if elected president, but her campaign recently told The Hill she no longer wants to outlaw the practice after videos of her endorsing a ban resurfaced following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 race. The campaign can walk back Harris’ old fracking position as it pleases, but it likely won’t be enough to allay the concerns of crucial voting blocs — particularly more rural, blue-collar voters in Pennsylvania — that Harris may wage war on the industry or otherwise escalate Biden’s climate agenda to their detriment if elected, political strategists and energy experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“She is going to find herself between a rock and a hard place on the issue of fracking, and also other issues like Gaza, too. She has all of her past statements, and the Biden-Harris administration record, which is against fracking and exports of liquefied natural gas,” Jon McHenry, a GOP polling analyst and vice president at North Star Opinion Research, told the DCNF. “And that’s great for her base supporters, the people who were upset about Joe Biden representing Democrats a couple weeks ago and are excited about Kamala Harris, who want her to ban fracking, and they’re excited to have a younger, more liberal candidate running for president.”
“The problem is she’s got to win independents in states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan and Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona, who want to see more energy developed in this country and for us to be more energy independent,” McHenry continued. “She wants to have her energy and ban it too.”
However, Harris could find a politically viable solution to her public perception problem on fracking if she were to disavow her old position and explain to voters that experiences in the White House — such as seeing how global energy markets were impacted by the Ukraine war — led her to change her mind, McHenry explained to the DCNF.
Fracking is a technique for extracting oil and gas from certain underground rock formations, and it enabled a natural gas boom in the U.
