Make no mistake: Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal is campaigning aggressively for Kamala Harris.
She’s been to Georgia three times, already hit Michigan and is headed to Wisconsin on behalf of Harris.
But as the vice president tacks to the right to defeat Donald Trump — on immigration and the war in Gaza, particularly — Jayapal is in a bit of an awkward spot. And she told NOTUS in an interview Thursday night that she recognizes the CPC has room to improve its relationship with Harris.
“We are, first, of course, making sure we do everything we can on the campaign side to elect her,” she said. “And then we’ll be having those same kinds of deep relationship-building meetings and all of the things we have to do to build that deep working relationship.”
Jayapal told NOTUS that “we hope” Harris has “the same kind of regard for progressives as the largest part of our coalition.”
“And we have no reason to believe she wouldn’t,” Jayapal said.
But the CPC chair, who is stepping down from her leadership position in just a few months, said she recognizes some of the roadblocks in the way of a strong relationship with the vice president.
Take immigration, for example.
“The vice president has been doing a really good job — for the most part — of straddling a difficult situation and a difficult issue,” Jayapal said. “But, I think that may be one area that we’re going to want to continue to push on.”
As Republicans criticize Harris’ policies on the border, the vice president has moved to the right on immigration, making it one of her signature campaign issues. She endorsed the compromise border security bill that Republicans and Democrats negotiated last year — one that progressives, like Trump, were far less keen on — and she’s earned her unofficial title as the “border czar.”
Still, Jayapal said she isn’t too worried about Democrats pressing forward with the bipartisan border bill next Congress. She told NOTUS she has a “hard time believing” that Democrats would exclusively pursue the bipartisan immigration bill next term — or “that we would start there.”
“I do think that we need to get this issue off the table by passing a comprehensive modernization of our immigration system that includes border security,” she said, “but also includes these legal pathways that will fix the immigration system and make it so that people have other ways to come.”
On the war in Gaza, progressives have pressed Harris to take a stronger stance against Israel. Jayapal acknowledged Harris’ precarious political position, as well as the reality that there would be friction between the CPC and the vice president on the topic. But she was hopeful that Harris is actually less of an Israel hawk than Joe Biden.
“She’s in a very difficult position now, where she’s not the president, she’s the vice president,” Jayapal said. “She can’t just say she doesn’t agree with the president, even if that were the case — which I’m not sure it is — and so certainly that is one area.”
If Harris wins the White House and Democrats retake the House — a plausible but uncertain outcome — the Harris administration is poised to work closely with the CPC. She almost certainly would have to. She’ll need the CPC’s votes if she wants to push Democratic priorities through Congress.
There’s power in that, of course, and Jayapal knows it. She sought to wield that power as Congress negotiated Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda in 2021.
As for her successor, she said Rep. Greg Casar is well positioned to take the CPC reins. In fact, she said Casar was the only CPC member to throw his hat in the ring at this point and that she’s “very supportive” of him.
“I think he’s going to be a great chair,” she said.
Jayapal did take one strategy to leverage power off the table. Even though some Democratic lawmakers endorsed challengers to incumbent CPC members — including Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush — Jayapal said the CPC plans to take the high road.
“The CPC as a PAC — because it’s the CPC PAC that endorses — doesn’t endorse against incumbent members,” she said. “And I think we want to keep it that way, and we hope that other PACs also won’t do that.”
For now, Jayapal is keeping her focus on going after Republicans. She said she remains troubled by Rep. Clay Higgins’ racist X post last week, and she worries that his rhetoric is “just becoming more and more common.”
She’s also concerned the GOP may pursue legislation from Project 2025 that, she said, politicizes the Department of Justice and eliminates the Department of Education.
But she’s less concerned about her own party tacking to the right. “We’re very used to that,” she said. “That is always what happens in the general election.”
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Riley Rogerson is a reporter at NOTUS.