Kamala Harris traveled to Columbus, Mississippi on Thursday to campaign for Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom, and what happened at Columbus High School is the kind of thing that ends up on a blooper reel. She tried to deliver a motivational quote, got total silence from the crowd, and then did what any confident public speaker would do. She tried again.
Harris told supporters she regularly mentors young people and offered them this gem: “Never let someone else with limited ability to see your capacity be a limitation on your ambition.” The crowd stared back at her. Crickets. So she took another swing at it. “Let me repeat that: Never let anybody else’s, somebody else’s limited ability to see your capacity to be a limitation on your ambition,” she said. The second attempt got a slightly warmer reception, which is a little like saying your second fender-bender of the day was slightly less bad than the first.
She kept going, telling the crowd, “That’s their limitation. That’s not our limitation. That’s their limitation,” before adding, “We are not limited in our ambition and desire and ability to see what is possible and what can be.” At this point in the speech, English itself may have filed a restraining order. You can read more about Kamala Harris Mississippi rally and the reaction it set off online.
The mockery on social media was swift. The X account End Wokeness also pointed out that Harris appeared to slip into a different accent while addressing the Southern crowd. “Kamala Harris just unveiled a new accent at a rally in Mississippi,” the account posted. “This might be the worst one yet.” Talk show host Chris Ripa piled on, writing on X, “Holy cringe… it’s like nails on a chalkboard. And what’s with the new accent.”
Harris, who lost the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump, is out on the trail supporting Democrats ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. In Mississippi, that means stumping for Colom, a district attorney trying to unseat Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith. Mississippi hasn’t sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1982, so this is already an uphill climb. Showing up with Kamala Harris and a word salad about ambition probably isn’t the secret weapon Colom was hoping for.
To his credit, Colom acknowledged before Harris took the stage that people had questioned the decision to invite her. “Why would you do that?” he said people asked him. His answer: “Why not?” Bold strategy, Scott. Bold strategy.
Harris did get some cheers during other parts of the rally when she hit the Trump administration on healthcare costs and called on voters to reject Hyde-Smith. She also repeated Colom’s campaign slogan, telling the crowd, “We’ve got 12 days to make history. And I’ve traveled here because, indeed, Mississippi Matters.” If only her motivational quotes landed as cleanly as someone else’s campaign slogan, she might have left the gym with a win. Instead, she left with a viral moment and a new accent.
