Rep. Salud Carbajal Comes Out for Kamala Harris

Santa Barbara Congressmember Salud Carbajal announced he is endorsing Kamala Harris, one of California’s two senators, in her bid to secure the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

“I know Kamala Harris; I have a working relationship with her, I know her character, and I think she would go toe to toe with Donald Trump,” Carbajal stated.

Carbajal dismissed concerns that Harris’s poll numbers are low — 8 percent in California and only 6 percent among black voters in South Carolina — saying, “All that can change overnight; there’s still a long way to go.”

Carbajal said that Harris was there for Santa Barbara County as California Attorney General, filing criminal charges against Plains All American Pipeline Company for allowing the Refugio Oil Spill of 2015. As a member of the Senate, he said, she helped push to protect 250,000 acres of land by the Carrizo Plain from being opened up to oil development.

“When I really look at her,” he said, “she’s a badass.”

Carbajal said Harris’s life story will prove compelling with voters and that her experience as a prosecutor would allow her to hold her own on the campaign trail with Trump. He noted that she did well in the recent debate among Democratic contenders for the party’s presidential nomination. 

Carbajal’s endorsement comes after State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson and State Assemblymember Monique Limón also endorsed Harris. Initially, Carbajal came out in favor of former Texas congressmember Beto O’Rourke, Carbajal’s former roommate in Washington, D.C.