A Guide to the 2020 Democratic Candidates You Should Not Vote For

[This piece was continuously updated throughout 2019. The Biden list has been updated, expanded, and better organized in a new piece that will be updated throughout the remainder of the primary: “125+ Reasons You Should Not Vote for Joe Biden.”]

The purpose of the Democratic primary process is to vet each candidate and choose the best one. They’re applying for a job for which you pay the salary, and a thorough background check is in order. Regardless of campaign promises and convenient claims of evolution, uncovering and addressing the potential nominees’ past actions is crucial, as it’s a politician’s record that best predicts how they might govern in the future.

This guide focuses on the four “major” candidates that come with the most concerns: Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, and Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke. Originally starting small after some family and friends asked me to put together a collection of articles, it’s quickly grown out of the desire to create an accessible and digestible public resource for all people to share.

Rousing debate within the party doesn’t weaken it, it strengthens it. If we don’t deal with the negatives of a potential nominee now, Trump will. If we nominate a candidate plagued by a litany of disqualifying issues, Trump will win. We can’t make that mistake again.

Nothing was included without a source for evidence, and unsubstantiated or sketchy claims were left out. I want this to be as accurate and exhaustive as possible and plan to update it as necessary, potentially even expanding to include other candidates. If you find an error or have a suggestion, please let me know!

Special thanks to just a few of the real journalists doing the real work that makes an aggregation like this possible, as well as these folks for partially inspiring this endeavor. You should follow all of them instead of me.

JOE BIDEN

has been personally involved in nearly every bad policy decision of the last 50 years. Currently coasting on name recognition and association with Obama, he can only go down from here as people realize he is more comparable to Trump than he is to anyone else. With all the negatives of Hillary’s failed campaign but none of the positives, he would almost surely see us lose the general election again. If you love your grandchildren at all please do not vote for Biden.

TOP 5 HIGHLIGHTS:

• Led the fight against desegregating schools even years after it had been proven a success and defended by Republicans [Expanded 7/6]
• Voted for the disastrous Iraq War, then escalated it, then lied about it, still says he’d “do it again,” and just hired a foreign policy adviser who helped Bush orchestrate the war before joining a lobbying firm for the military-industrial complex [Expanded 8/13, 8/29, 9/6]
• Wrote the racist Crime Bill that intentionally led to record-breaking mass incarceration, positioning himself to the right of even Reagan and Bush
• Opposed Roe v Wade and voted to allow states to overturn it like they are now, worked to undermine the ACA’s coverage of birth control, does “not view abortion as a choice and a right” and still opposed federal funding for it multiple times including during this election
• Long history of creepily/patronizingly groping/sniffing/kissing/grabbing/condescending women and young girls just so many times, even including intimidation and continuing even now after his non-apology [Expanded 10/14, 10/29, 11/9]

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL:

• Racist comments like this and this, and fondness towards if not impassioned support for so many of the worst racists and segregationists like this whom he chose to work with, as well as Republicans like George Bush, Dick Cheney, Mike Pence, and Jeb Bush. Generally has no understanding of racism in America [Expanded 7/27, 8/8, 9/13]
• As part of his crusade against desegregating schools he was the only member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to block two black appointees to the Department of Justice
• Has lied about marching in the Civil Rights movement multiple times, and seems to lie about attending an HBCU [Expanded 8/31, 10/29]
• Horrible treatment of Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas hearing
• Supports cutting Social Security and Medicare and raising the retirement age on multiple occasions, backing Paul Ryan’s efforts to do so, while voting to gut welfare
• Led the disastrous War on Drugs, and somehow still opposes cannabis legalization (while simultaneously trying to destroy the growing industry by handing it over to the Big Pharma), yet two of his children escaped consequences for drug use [Expanded 8/31]
• Pushed to expand death penalty, even to those on drug charges
• Opposes Medicare for All while he and his campaign lie about it what it would entail, and wants to bring back penalizing those who can’t afford to pay for private insurance. He continues to praise Big Pharma to his ultra-wealthy donors and is the only candidate to refuse to meet with disabled healthcare activist Ady Barkan [Expanded 7/6, 7/27, 9/21, 10/14]
• Originally claimed he “doesn’t have time” to propose his own healthcare plan, then proposed one that would kill 125,000 Americans and leave over 10 million uninsured (which he’s lied about) in a rollout sponsored by Big Pharma (even his own wife admits he’s not good on healthcare, and he’s let slip the true reality of his proposal) [Expanded 7/6, 7/27, 8/19, 8/26, 10/14]
• Personally fought to make cancer medication unaffordable for patients in developing nations [Added 10/14]
• Opposed equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community even very recently, only eventually coming around just 7 short years ago, and is still awkward at best on the issue [Expanded 9/22, 10/14]
• Supported the NRA in passing massive anti-gun control legislation, and has blamed videos games for mass shootings multiple times [Expanded 8/5]
• Opposes meaningful action on the climate crisis like the Green New Deal, instead pursuing the “middle ground” while he is often rude towards young climate activists and his campaign attacks publications for accurately reporting this [Expanded 11/25, 12/5]
• He’s rated D- by Greenpeace in part because he supports fracking, oil and gas exportation, and the building of new fossil fuel infrastructure, and his campaign shot down the proposed climate debate and skipped MSNBC’s climate forum [Added 8/23, Expanded 9/6, 9/16]
• Plagiarized fossil fuel groups’ language in his woefully inadequate climate crisis plan after his climate advisor made $1 million from one natural gas company alone. He then made uncomfortable physical contact with and rudely dismissed a young woman who asked him about this [Expanded 10/14]
• Broke his own pledge to not accept fossil fuel money by attending a fundraiser hosted by his former advisor and current oil corporation co-founder/owner Andrew Goldman, and lied about it twice [Added 9/6, Clarified/Expanded 9/7, 10/14]
• Instead of supporting job placement for affected fossil fuel workers during the transition to a green economy like the Green New Deal does, he dismissively tells coal miners to just learn to code instead [Added 12/31]
• Voted to expand deportations and indefinite detention for immigrants multiple times and opposed amnesty for immigrants and supports requiring them to learn English
• As VP his administration deported more people than any other in American history, deporting people at a higher rate than Trump’s administration even according to ICE themselves, and expanding the anti-immigrant system Trump now uses by 3,600%. He still refuses to answer for this and has told immigration activists to vote for Trump and called the police on others for passing out flyers [Expanded 7/9, 10/14, 11/22]
• As VP his administration built the inhumane concentration camps in which children separated from their families are still illegally caged, beginning the practice which Trump has now continued and resulting in the ongoing lawsuit claiming that ICE is violating the Flores Agreement by not providing basics like toothpaste and soap [Added 7/9]
• Voted to build border walls and supported sending military to the border long before Trump
• Voted to ban immigrants with HIV, locking Haitian refugees up in Guantanamo Bay
• Spearheaded the Alliance for Prosperity which increased deportations, border militarization, privatization, and oil pipelines for American exploitation while worsening the refugee crisis
• Architected Plan Colombia, internationalizing the War On Drugs resulting in mass death, displacement, and destruction of food crops, while opening the country to US business interests
• Sides with Trump in backing right-wing coup in Venezuela
• Voted to authorize invasion of the Netherlands if an American is tried for war crimes by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, refusal to participate in UN peacekeeping unless the US obtains immunity, and withdrawal of aid to countries that ratify ICC treaty
• Supports Israel’s right-wing regime and apartheid in Palestine purely to protect US interests. A self-described Zionist, he blames Palestinians for multiple US-backed Israeli massacres, including an attack that killed 9 peace activists. Calls BDS “anti-semitic” and has a 100% rating from AIPAC [Expanded 7/4]
• Recklessly threatens nuclear war with North Korea and seems to think Kim Jong Un is from South Korea and that they’ve met when they haven’t [Expanded 12/2]
• Sided with banks to overturn Glass-Steagall and deregulate, leading to financial crisis, and has dishonestly tried to take credit for the formation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau despite actually helping strip state consumer protection [Expanded 10/18]
• Defends billionaires hoarding wealth and promises to ensure it keeps happening at the expense of everyone else while voting to slash the top income tax rate and cripple the estate tax, resulting in $83 billion lost annually
• Led the disastrous Bankruptcy Bill resulting in increased debt and specifically fought to make student loan debt more difficult to live with before dismissing the plight of Millennials who are now the most indebted generation ever [Expanded 8/26]
• Lied about his own student debt multiple times, his own scholarship, and his own academic achievements, and has not proposed any plans to make public college tuition free or to abolish student debt [Added 8/26]
• Voted against abolishing the electoral college that undemocratically elected Bush and Trump
• Is considering picking a Republican to be his VP [Added 12/31]
• Took $200,000 to help a Republican beat a Democrat to Congress despite being anti-abortion
• Voted against enhancing labor protection enforcements
• Voted for NAFTA, supports TPP, is generally to the right of Trump on trade, and argued against the prediction that China would become an economic competitor [Expanded 9/13]
• Works with union-busters, voted to cut union pensions, continues to snub unions, and is generally bad for workers [Expanded 10/14]
• Consistently sides with special interests and corporations against antitrust regulation and voted for the first antitrust exemption since 1922
• Opposes net neutrality
• Driving force behind the Patriot Act, supports warrantless wiretaps / mass surveillance while his son partially owns the Chinese government’s Islamophobic mass surveillance system [Edited 9/13]
• Personally tried to prevent Ecuador from providing asylum for Edward Snowden
• Says the CIA torture report is not a “black stain on this country” but a “badge of honor”
• Worsened the opioid epidemic and made it harder to treat
• Wants to make up reasons to jail anyone associated with a rave and literally bulldoze it down while his RAVE legislation lets kids die from preventable drug overdoses
• Was the only senator to vote against expanding a child care tax credit [Added 7/29]
• Has questionable electability based on receiving less than 0.22% in 3 previous Democratic primary elections. He has a history of insulting voters many times and is currently skipping major party events, hiding from the press, and holding only between a quarter and half as many public events as his rivals [Expanded 11/28, 12/5, 12/31]
• Has questionable electability based on his infamous propensity for awkward “gaffes,” including many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many in this election cycle alone, to the point where he is literally unable to campaign [Added 8/9, Expanded 8/11, 8/13, 8/15, 8/23, 8/24, 9/2, 9/17, 10/14, 12/2]
• Plagiarized law school papers and campaign speeches (in which he lied about having coal miner roots), which ended his 1988 presidential run
• His anti-progressive campaign surrogate Ed Rendell is a sexist, pro-fracking, pro-AIPAC Fox News supporter who approved bombing a black neighborhood in Philadelphia, killing 5 children and 6 adults [Added 6/26]
• Used Charlottesville as a prop in his campaign video despite never even visiting once
• Lied about getting shot down in Iraq and experiences in Afghanistan [Added 8/31]
• Has no plan to reform the court system or counter its Republican takeover, has proposed re-nominating the failed Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, a nearly 70 year-old “moderate” who has opposed voting rights and human rights for Guantanamo detainees, and is fine with Kavanaugh remaining on the Supreme Court for life [Added 7/6, Expanded 9/16]
• Is still openly courting Republican billionaires for donations, including John Catsimatidis, who’s compared taxing the wealthy to Nazi persecution of Jews
• Endorsed by Alan Dershowitz, the millionaire Trump supporter accused of taking part in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex ring, after Biden’s son ensured a similar billionaire pedophile avoided prison after raping his own toddler
• Voted to deregulate the credit card industry while a credit card company was his top donor from 1989–2000 and then hired his son
• His administration awarded a $1.5 billion contract to his brother’s construction firm despite his brother having no prior residential construction experience
• Has a long history of generally Trump-esque nepotism that he refuses to address [Added 10/14]
• Broke his own pledge to take over 2x more money than Trump from lobbyists and special interests, including at least 13 billionaires, has the same general donor base as Trump, and very openly partakes in general corruption while lying and condescending about this [Expanded 8/5, 8/11, 8/23, 10/14, 11/22]
• Flip-flopped on his initial opposition to using Super PACs and established one with military industrial complex and private healthcare lobbyists, even after admitting, “You shouldn’t accept any money from a Super PAC, because people can’t possibly trust you” just one year prior [Added 10/25]
• Erskine Bowles, famous for leading the commission to raise the retirement age and cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, disabled veterans’ benefits, and taxes on billionaires, is bundling for him, meaning he’s collecting dark money from secret donors that are not disclosed [Added 12/28]
• One of his big fundraisers is a Republican donor who is a major player in the for-profit prison industry [Added 12/31]
• His Senate chief of staff is now running Fox News’ lobbying operation [Added 10/14]
• Hasn’t released any tax returns since 2015, which people seem to care about now [On 7/9 he released them to no media attention, revealing an $11 million increase in income in his first year out of office alone]
• Seems to have found a loophole to avoid paying his interns [Added 7/12]
• Says he will defy a subpoena to testify in Trump’s trial [Added 12/31]
• Unconvincingly co-opted Bernie’s education plan and slogan, and a Biden PAC plagiarized Kamala Harris’ slogan for its name
• Despite his supposed frontrunner status he is a distant 5th in individual donors, raising questions of electability [Added 10/14]
• “A lot of us sit around thinking up ways to vote conservative just so we don’t come out with a liberal rating. I’m really quite conservative…”
• Meghan and the McCain family and Strom Thurmond have endorsed him, and Trump has donated to him
• He wants people to stay Republican instead of becoming Democrats, doesn’t want the Republican Party to lose power, and doesn’t want the Democratic Party to become too powerful [Added 12/8]
• The worst part? He’s still not sorry for any of this (but wants a black man to apologize to him)

PETE BUTTIGIEG

can at least partially speak a lot of languages and would be a historic first gay president, but he has less experience than Bernie had in 1988, and those 7 years as Mayor of Indiana’s 4th biggest town have been problematic at best.

TOP 5 HIGHLIGHTS:

• Fired South Bend’s black police chief for exposing racism in the police force, then lied about it, then fired those calling for an investigation, possibly leaving innocent black people imprisoned while some in his inner circle backed a $45,000 loan to one of the accused racist cops
• Refused to investigate the apparent lynching of a 16 year-old black boy
• When a white officer with a documented history of racist behavior that violated department policy was allowed to stay on the force without a bodycam he shot and killed an elderly black man. Mayor Pete then spoke to media before the victim’s family, skipped the vigil, and then gave a speech to the police instead to much criticism
• Allowed a white officer to keep his job after multiple racist and violent incidents including beating and tasing an innocent teen after breaking into the wrong house, and torturing a disabled man and posting a video of it online as retaliation for the man filing a complaint about the force ignoring a drunk driving incident, even despite a community-led campaign and petition
• Oversaw increases in homelessness and displacement during his time as Mayor of South Bend

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL:

• Oversaw a police force that was forced to pay out over $1.3 million in brutality and civil rights settlements
• Oversaw a 50% decrease in black officers on the police force, replacing many who left due to not being given promotions with white officers
• Demolished the homes of many South Bend residents unable to afford repairs and drastically ramped up unfair fines
• Doubled South Bend’s eviction rate through shady practices, increasing it to 3x the national average, while simultaneously ramping up a war against the homeless [Added 9/16]
• Did little to address the disproportionately high rates of poverty and unemployment among South Bend people of color
• Increased overall inequality in South Bend during his time as Mayor
• Released a plan for black America with no apparent input from black advisers, claiming endorsements from over “400 black South Carolinians,” yet a huge percentage of the individuals listed either did not know about the plan, declined to endorse the plan, are actually white, don’t live in America, are duplicated names, or seemingly don’t exist at all (all while using a stock image from Kenya) [Added 11/15]
• Black Lives Matter has asked him to resign [Added 11/19]
• Either naively believes or intentionally pushes the lie that the founding fathers “did not understand that slavery was a bad thing” [Added 12/30]
• Defended a racist, threatening campaign that mocked the murder of Eric Garner by police as being just a message about “the safety of police officers” [Added 12/4]
• Oversaw racial disparities in policing worse than the national average and appears to have done little if anything to address it [Added 11/27]
• Has stayed silent as his police chief and close ally lies about South Bend police turning off their bodycams while mimicking the KKK as they arrested a young black man [Added 12/27]
• Exacerbates the plight of low-income black students by accusing their communities for failing to provide more educational role models instead of addressing the systemic racism keeping them down, continuing the Republican method of blaming the poor for their poverty [Added 11/26, Expanded 12/25]
• Claims he didn’t realize his own school district was racially segregated despite working there for years [Added 12/1]
• Praised the Tea Party for their “real concerns about the direction of our government” during Obama’s presidency [Added 11/19]
• Responded to Black Lives Matter with the right-wing response “All Lives Matter”
• Dismisses workers striking for fair wages with right-wing epithet “social justice warriors”
• Abandoned his support for Medicare for All and uses Republican talking points to try to delegitimize it once the healthcare industry money started coming in, having now taken more of it than any other candidate. Also opposes the government making generic drugs to lower prices [Expanded 7/22, 10/15, 10/17, 10/29]
• Is the only top candidate not providing health care to his own staff and wants to leave them and everyone else to “figure out” how to get covered on their own [Expanded 12/26]
• His healthcare plan “hinges on ‘supercharged’ version of unpopular Obamacare mandate” that will charge massive fines to uninsured people [Added 12/26]
• Opposes universally tuition free public college and continues to use Republican talking points to mischaracterize the program and lie about what it would entail [Expanded 12/1]
• He is especially transparent with his willingness to sell influence, offering blunt pay-to-play schemes to big money donors, despite previously admitting such tactics are a corrupt conflict of interest [Added 12/26]
• Was for a while the only top candidate openly funding his campaign with lobbyist money, taking more of it this year than Trump while openly disparaging grassroots fundraising and dismissing opposition to bribery and corruption as an unneeded “purity test” [Expanded 10/14, 12/28]
• Has accepted money from over 40 billionaires, corporations like Blackstone, and is one of Wall Street’s favorite candidates [Expanded 8/5, 8/11, 12/26]
• Uses “bundling,” a practice that allows fundraising from secret donors that are never disclosed, and then deceptively hid more than 20 of his top bundlers from the public [Added 12/25]
• Refuses to disclose some of his fundraiser hosts, while some of those we do know about, like the wine cave people, have bought so much influence within their party their big dollar donations got them ambassadorships and a federal bailout during the S&L scandal [Added 12/26]
• To compensate for his big money fundraising, his campaign comes up with gimmicks to artificially decrease his average donation amount [Added 12/25]
• Top lawyers who defended Kavanaugh fundraised for him and donated over the maximum amount allowed before the campaign returned some of this due to pressure [Added 11/27]
• Planned to host a big-money fundraiser with the ex-city attorney who covered up the racist police murder of Laquan McDonald before being pressured to drop him [Added 10/18]
• Takes money from CEOs and executives from Lehmann Brothers, Saudi oil firms, and other equity firms and hedge funds financing fossil fuel corporations [Added 12/25]
• Joins billionaires, one of which was convicted of selling missile technology to China, and the party establishment in shady backroom meetings to plot how to stop progressives [Expanded 12/2]
• His Senior Advisor is tied to Trump donors, landlords profiting from ICE, white nationalists, and thinks Steve Bannon is a “once-in-a-generation political talent.” The head of a working group for his campaign likes tweets from white nationalist Twitter [Added 7/30, Expanded 12/1, 12/2]
• His climate adviser, a paid witness for the Trump administration in a lawsuit over its inaction on climate change, opposes fossil fuel divestment [Added 11/19]
• Does not support the Green New Deal and is condescending towards young climate activists quite often [Added 11/18, Expanded 12/25]
• Mark Zuckerberg advises him on who to hire and his national policy director is a former Goldman Sachs executive [Added 10/21, Expanded 10/22]
• Says he would pick Supreme Court Justices like Justice Kennedy, who voted to uphold Trump’s Muslim ban, defend Citizens United, gut labor unions, and uphold voter suppression, before resigning during Trump’s administration, paving the way for Kavanaugh’s appointment [Added 10/25]
• Favors wealthy developers over regular citizens, passing out subsidies for luxury apartments and a multimillion–dollar tax abatement for a high-end downtown office complex, and even attempted to sell off a full quarter of the city’s parklands to for-profit owners [Added 9/16]
• Sees his constituents not as people with needs but a corporation to be managed [Added 12/4]
• Wants to continue taking the right to vote away from 6+ million Americans with criminal records, a ban that was enacted specifically to keep black Americans from voting [Expanded 12/23]
• Won’t support universal childcare
• Proposes mandatory national service
• Wants to keep troops in Syria and is generally hawkish and tone deaf about our country’s imperialist violence abroad [Expanded 8/5]
• Opposed Obama ending the torture of whistleblower Chelsea Manning and supports the continued torture and imprisonment of whistleblower/journalist Julian Assange [Expanded 10/29]
• Supports Israel’s bloody right-wing apartheid to the point he wants to model US security after it and called it “moving” after snipers killed 60 unarmed protestors [Expanded 7/4]
• Opposes reversing Trump’s relocation of the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem
• Took what some consider a disrespectful photo at the Holocaust Memorial [Added 11/18]
• Is floating the idea of sending troops to Mexico to escalate the War on Drugs amidst multiple US-backed far-right coups and coup attempts below the border [11/18]
• Looks up to the architects of the Vietnam War as role models [Added 12/25]
• Worked for evil McKinsey consulting firm, famous for pushing ICE to cut food and medicine for detainees, and refused to disclose his role or his clients for some time. Now we know his work included advising health insurance companies to fire workers and increase costs and USPS to fire workers and bust unions [Expanded 11/21, 12/3, 12/25, 12/26]
• Has some questionable interactions with striking union members [Added 12/26]
• Has the least government experience and electoral history of the major candidates by far, with only two terms as mayor of Indiana’s 4th biggest town, the latter of which he won with just 8,515 votes in an election with a paltry 14% turnout [Added 11/8]
• He was crushed in a historically bad loss in the only statewide race he’s run [Added 12/25]
• Removed traffic lights from an intersection children used to get to school, which resulted in a child being struck and killed, and then appeared to blame the child for the incident the very next day [Added 12/1]
• Specifically opposes “big structural change” and “political revolution,” instead preferring empty platitudes [Added 11/18]
• Oversaw increases in violent crime in South Bend [Added 12/26]
• Ignored the needs of disabled constituents and failed to make government buildings ADA compliant [Added 7/2]
• Would not push for a Democrat man to resign from office over sexual misconduct
• Is disguising corporate tax breaks as very weak internship benefits [Added 12/25]
• Has previously supported people opting out of vaccinations for personal or religious reasons
• Seems to have issues with temperament considering he clenched his fist in rage when Warren called him out on his “wine cave” fundraising [Added 12/23]
• For some reason appears to be lying about either directly or indirectly curating his own Wikipedia page [Added 12/23]
• Does not support the Democratic right of boycotting corporations for political reasons and accuses those who boycott Chick-Fil-A’s homophobia of “virtue signaling” [Expanded 12/25]
• Sees no issue with volunteering for the homophobic and transphobic Salvation Army [Added 12/25]
• Though he supports abortion rights, he increasingly appears to be taking vague positions on the issue using Republican talking points [Added 12/25]
• His pandering is kinda racist and he seems pretty naive [Expanded 11/3]
• His supporters are the most likely to vote for Trump out of any other major candidate [Added 12/19]
• Despite being a millennial, he polls at just 2% with voters under 35. (In at least the previous three general elections, the Democratic nominee only won if they first got the most youth vote in the primary, losing if they did not.) [Added 12/25]
• Has reportedly admitted, “This is a competition, you say whatever you need to say to win” [Added 12/25]
• Polling shows he would likely lose to Trump in a general election

KAMALA HARRIS

would be the first female President who is also a corrupt cop.

TOP 5 HIGHLIGHTS:

• Pushed a law that forces schools to turn undocumented students over to ICE, separating them from their parents and violating human rights, and continues to defend the existence of ICE [Expanded 8/11]
• Laughed about putting parents in jail if their kids missed school, disproportionately harming single parent households, the poor, and families of color like this one, including homeless mothers
• Her office refused to address what the Supreme Court calls “unconstitutionally overcrowded” prisons specifically to perpetuate the exploitation of the mass incarcerated for slave labor close to $1/hour (she later claimed she didn’t know her own lawyers argued this) [Clarified 7/1]
• Declined to prosecute Steven Mnuchin after his bank’s predatory lending and foreclosure fraud broke the law “over a thousand” times and ruined the lives of thousands of homeowners, keeping him free to donate to her campaign and become Trump’s Treasury Secretary
• Spent years jailing disproportionately black nonviolent cannabis users while opposing taking cannabis off the DEA’s list of most dangerous substances and literally laughing at the idea of legalizing it multiple times, even as her Republican opponent ran to the left of her on the issue. She then tried to pander by admitting to smoking herself despite prosecuting others, but got her story all wrong, and even offended her own Jamaican family to the point they’ve disassociated with her [Expanded 7/2]

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL:

• Used a technicality to stop the release of a man serving 27 years-to-life after being wrongfully convicted of possession of a knife under the three-strikes law she supported. When civil rights groups and nearly 100,000 petition signatures got him released after 14 years she took him back to court again for a crime he didn’t commit
• Opposed reforming California’s three-strikes law, which is the only one in the country to impose life sentences for minor felonies and incarcerates black people at 12x the rate as white people, three different times, even while her Republican opponent supported reform
• Appealed a judge ruling that the death penalty was unconstitutional and won on a technicality, resulting in continued executions
• When evidence pointed towards a black defendant being framed by police, Harris avoided DNA testing to keep him on death row
• Protected serial child rapists by refusing to prosecute in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal
• Lied about her state’s solitary confinement to block a suit by inmates, claiming there was none in California when there were about 6,400 victims of the practice, which is considered torture
• Oversaw a state prosecutor falsifying a confession to get a life sentence and then destroyed the evidence, upheld a conviction secured by a prosecutor lying under oath, and oversaw the framing of another man
• Opposed legislation that would require independent investigation of fatal police shootings despite criticism from many civil rights advocates including California’s Legislative Black Caucus, and seems to think the way for black people to avoid being murdered by racist police is to get a job [Expanded 10/29]
• Opposed statewide implementation of police body cameras and ignored police brutality, multiple officers raping a teenager, and other officers sharing racist and homophobic messages, despite multiple requests from the public defender
• Refused to hand over the names of police whose testimonies led to convictions despite the officers’ arrest records and past misconduct
• Stood by silently as $730 million was spent on moving inmates to for-profit private prisons
• Her DA office prosecuted 10% of San Francisco’s black population for felony drug charges in just one year alone, and prosecuted black women at 50x the rate of other CA counties, resulting in 40% of CA’s felony drug convictions of black girls [Added 8/31]
• Tried to deny a transgender inmate healthcare and endangered trans women by forcing them into mens prisons, leading to the rape and torture of at least one trans inmate
• Fought to block payments to wrongfully convicted people, and fought to force those wrongfully convicted of sex crimes to re-register as sex offenders even after being formally ruled innocent [Added 10/17]
• Initially claimed to endorse Medicare for All and used it to grow her email list before flip-flopping on multiple aspects of it and even claiming to be “uncomfortable” with the plan once she met with wealthy donors, much to the dismay of the family of a victim she exploited for political points [Expanded 7/6, 8/9, 8/23, 8/26]
• Her rival healthcare plan would take 10 years to implement, keeps private insurance, and was heavily consulted on by a board member of a private insurer who would profit off it [Added 8/7]
• Voted two different times to block federal funding for abortions
• Delayed the confiscation of illegal firearms from dangerous people, then posed a “continued risk to public safety” by failing to implement changes state auditors recommended to fix this despite receiving $24 million specifically for this purpose
• Following the foreclosure fraud scandal she negotiated a deal great for banks but bad for the ruined homeowners, becoming one of Wall Street’s favorite candidates to fundraise for
• Voted to give Trump increased military spending two different times
• Supports Trump escalating war in Syria
• Co-sponsored the bill that let Trump impose sanctions on Iran which violated the nuclear deal and lead to the currently rising tensions
• “Systematically violated defendants’ civil and constitutional rights” in crime lab scandal
• Kept her Orange County DA office from being charged for running an unconstitutional jailhouse informant program which they tried to cover up
• Oversaw San Francisco’s felony conviction rate rising from 52% to 67% in only 3 years
• As part of her tough on crime approach she assigned senior prosecutors to misdemeanors like graffiti and vandalism, tripling the number of cases brought to trial [Added 7/2]
• Mocks the activist call to “build more schools, less jails”
• Supports collecting and keeping DNA from people even if they’ve not been charged with a crime
• Defended the discriminatory practice of cash bail in court as recently as June 2016, even fighting to raise cash bail costs [Expanded 7/27]
• Supports Israel’s right-wing government and cozies up to AIPAC, co-sponsored resolution against Obama in support of illegal settlements, does not support Palestinian rights, and calls BDS “anti-semitic” [Expanded 7/4]
• Claimed to be unaware of sexual harassment and retaliation by her top aide over a 6 year span
• Sponsored a bill allowing for prosecutors to seize profits before charges are even filed and opposed a bill that would reform civil asset forfeiture
• Defended a prison’s religious discrimination in hiring policy
• Opposed calls to tear down 700 miles of existing border wall/fence
• Fought to limit amount of land indigenous tribes could place in trust and tried to take reservation land away from a tribe just to keep them from evicting a non-indigenous man who had lived there without paying rent for 24 years [Added 7/1]
• Was initially the only candidate to turn down attending the first climate change town hall as she planned to court big money bundlers instead, then skipped another while her staff and supporters shouted down the young activists fighting to save the environment [Added 8/23, 9/16]
• She supports fracking, oil and gas exportation, and the building of new fossil fuel infrastructure, her plan to have “emission-free vehicles” by 2045 is woefully too little too late, and she’s lied about suing Exxon [Added 9/6, Expanded 9/15]
• Refused to review a case in which a pharmaceutical CEO killed his wife but made it look like a suicide after their son died under mysterious circumstances as well
• Refused to prosecute PG&E for its massive gas pipeline explosion, leaving them free to exploit hurricane-wracked Puerto Rico and kill at least one person in CA, and now its consultants are running her campaign [Expanded 10/13]
• Did not properly investigate the San Onofre scandal to protect her political allies
• Refused to investigate Herbalife’s exploitation and fraud, receiving donations from people connected to the corporation
• Her associate operated a fake police force but somehow all charges were dismissed
• Prosecuted a mentally ill woman who was shot by police [Added 9/12]
• Refused to review a case in which there was reasonable suspicion that police officers were involved in the death of a woman until it lined up with her next election campaign, after the statute of limitations had ended [Added 12/4]
• Refuses to support AB5 which would give gig workers like rideshare drivers basic employee rights (her brother-in-law and niece are high-up in Uber) [Added 7/6, Edited 9/12]
• Opposed legalization of sex work, endangered sex workers, and oversaw people being charged for prostitution without even agreeing to sex
• Endangered the public by supporting legislation that increased the homeless sex offender population 24x in 3 years, then appealed a court’s ruling that it was unconstitutional. Her Republican opponent ran to the left of her on this issue
• Is the #1 recipient of lobbyist money amongst all presidential candidates from all parties, accepting over 4x more than Trump, and her campaign is looking to begin using Super PACs [Added 8/11, Expanded 11/29]
• Hosted a fundraiser with a former Wells Fargo executive who oversaw the bank opening over 3.5 million fake accounts and charging around 200,000 customers with fraudulent fees [Added 10/14]
• Following criticism of her record the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation quietly removed public access to her arrest and incarceration reports [Added 10/14]
• Has no serious plan for student debt forgiveness and wants to create a pipeline from HBCUs to the military [Added 10/14]
• Her signature achievement, “Back on Track,” which sought to decrease recidivism, was actually largely a failure that simply shifted focus away from the real problem of over-criminalization [Added 10/17]
• Accepted thousands of dollars of campaign funds from Donald and Ivanka Trump multiple times and is funded by prominent sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein’s law firm, prominent charter school pusher and billionaire Reed Hastings, and at least 17 total billionaires overall [Expanded 7/27, 8/5]
• Blames Russia for the Colin Kaepernick controversy and generally promotes conspiracy theories to discredit racial tension like this, while her white campaign staff attempts to discredit black activists’ criticisms of her record as Russian interference [Added 7/27, Expanded 10/14, 10/21]
• Defends Nancy Pelosi’s awful treatment of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, etc. [Added 7/27]
• Her poorly treated campaign staff are in complete disarray [Added 11/29]
• Somehow continues to avoid calling Trump a white supremacist [Added 8/11]
• Laughed at an offensive ableist slur, then seems to have lied about it [Added 9/15]
• Wants to extend the school day from 8 AM to 6 PM [Added 11/6, Clarified 11/9]
• Attacked Biden’s opposition to federally-mandated busing to sell t-shirts despite holding the exact same position [Added 8/31]
• Polling shows she would likely lose to Trump in a general election and she is only polling 4th in her own state

ROBERT FRANCIS “BETO” O’ROURKE

More likely to stand on something than for anything, “Beto” rose to fame by clearing the low bar of being less unlikeable than Ted Cruz. Like most white men born into wealth he’s failed up, choosing a vanity run for President despite being best positioned to flip Texas’ other Senate seat in 2020. He says he was born for it, but maybe he should’ve just stuck to skateboarding.

TOP 5 HIGHLIGHTS:

• Continues to appropriate Mexican nickname “Beto,” which was given to him specifically to pander to / trick Hispanic voters when running for office, despite criticism from the Hispanic community (before running for office he had gone by Robert as an adult) [Clarified 7/1, Expanded 8/3]
• Used his political power to help his millionaire father-in-law gentrify poor Hispanic communities with a racist plan that “relocated” poor Hispanics to make way for property investments made by wealthy Republican donors
• Opposed Obamacare, tried to cut social security, and attacked labor unions to appease Republican donors
• Generally voted against Democrats so much he was in the top fifth of lawmakers voting against their own party, voting with Trump a third of the time even though he represented one of the most solid blue districts in the country
• Ran the most expensive congressional race of all time with immense establishment and celebrity backing and still lost to the guy who lost to Trump

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL:

• Voted with Republicans to deregulate Wall Street so many different times that I have to keep typing more words to hyperlink
• Voted two different times to block federal funding for abortions
• Sided with Republicans lying about “death panels” to undermine the ACA and abolish the IPAB (panel meant to lower Medicare costs for seniors)
• Does not support Medicare for All and voted for Republican legislation that makes it easier for states to discriminate against pre-existing conditions
• Voted with Republicans for Trump’s second round of tax scam legislation
• Broke his own pledge to not accept money from fossil fuel industry, bringing in nearly half a million dollars, and then refused to sign another while backtracking on climate crisis legislation. He is the #1 Democrat recipient of oil/gas money, bringing in even more than Trump [Expanded 8/20]
• Voted with Republicans to lift the 40 year-old oil export ban multiple times, voted to speed up the exports, voted against Democratic legislation to ban new drilling, opposes even a simple carbon tax, and skipped MSNBC’s climate forum [Expanded 9/7, 9/16]
• Voted for 20 of the 29 military spending bills since 2013, opposing even a 1% cut in spending, all while bringing in more money from defense lobbyists than any other candidate
• Is the only major candidate who opposes decreasing defense spending, and is the only major candidate who opposes withdrawing all troops from Afghanistan by 2025 [Added 8/19]
• Supports Trump’s attempted right-wing coup in Venezuela
• Is fine with people keeping assault weapons
• Voted for mandatory 15 year sentencing for teens attempting to send/receive a sext
• His campaign manager is a corporate lobbyist for Bank of America, Humana, Pfizer, and Juul who set the rules for the Democratic primaries/caucuses and licensed party voter files for profit
• His senior advisor is a corporate lobbyist for private prisons, Keystone XL, and Blackstone
• The #1 recipient of AIPAC lobbyist money in the House, he voted for largest military aid package for Israel in history and opposes BDS, ignoring the plight of Palestinians
• Voted for the “Blue Lives Matter” bill that turned police into a protected class, making assaulting an officer akin to a hate crime
• Backed Republican legislation to weaken the vetting process for border patrol hiring as they continue to commit human rights violations
• Helped a Republican beat who would’ve become the first queer woman of color in Congress
• Profited off of IPOs while in Congress
• Used campaign funds to pay his and his wife’s own company
• Supports charter schools while married to a charter school leader
• Does not support making public college tuition free
• Backed by Koch brothers and finance industry-funded think tank Third Way and Neera Tanden of CAP, which is funded by banks, insurance companies, arms manufacturers, and the United Arab Emirates [Expanded 8/28]
• Voted to fast-track TPP and wants to preserve NAFTA
• Cosponsored and voted for a Republican bill that made it harder to pursue auto lenders for unlawful discrimination and weakened protections for home mortgage borrowers
• Voted to create the unelected Puerto Rico oversight board that cut pension benefits, the minimum wage, and wants to cut its budget by 1/3
• Voted for FOSTA/SESTA which has been devastating for sex workers
• Inflated his own donor numbers in an attempt to appear ahead of Bernie and takes money from at least 9 billionaire donors [Expanded 8/5]
• Has a criminal record that includes DWI (Driving While Intoxicated) and burglary arrests
• Polling shows he would likely lose to Trump in a general election
• He promised us he wouldn’t do this

If you liked this article you might also be interested in “10 Reasons Why Bernie Sanders Is Our Best Chance to Beat Donald Trump,” “A Progressive’s Guide to Choosing Between Bernie and Warren,” and “125+ Reasons You Should Not Vote for Joe Biden.”