Before this week, Sen. Kamala Harris had missed just one vote since she announced her presidential bid. | Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo 2020 Elections Harris skips vote on California disaster aid to campaign for president Her absence highlights the growing pressure a half-dozen Democratic senators running for the White House are under to ditch their day jobs.

When the Senate took contentious votes this week on a disaster aid package to help California rebuild after wildfires, Sen. Kamala Harris was in Sacramento — courting the support of labor unions for her presidential campaign.

A day later, Harris was stumping in Nevada when she missed a Tuesday vote on the start of a Republican maneuver to speed up confirmation of President Donald Trump’s judicial and executive branch nominees. Harris was still in Nevada Wednesday when the Senate took more votes, including a historic vote in which Senate Republicans used the so-called nuclear option to finalize their plan to expedite Trump's nominees.


The missed votes highlight the challenge she and five of her Democratic Senate colleagues face as they struggle to balance their day jobs with the increasing demands of a presidential campaign. Complicating their decisions of when to campaign is the ascent of former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, whose unemployment gives him the freedom to crisscross the country while cable news shows cut in live to his midday events. Former Vice President Joe Biden, should he run, also would not be tethered to the Capitol.

Senate Republicans are already keeping tabs on the missed votes of 2020 Democrats. Some of the candidates fear Republicans will lard the calendar with votes at inopportune times to force their hands.

COUNTDOWN TO 2020 The race for 2020 starts now. Stay in the know. Follow our presidential election coverage. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

“If you’re going to run, I think you have to be single-minded about it. I don’t think you can kind of be half-minded about it,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential nominee in 2016. “But it is really, really hard to do and balance with being in the Senate. I don’t envy the juggling and the staff work.”

Top aides to presidential campaigns told POLITICO they’re at various stages of internal discussions with their candidates about their comfort level — and the eventual need — to miss more votes. All of them expect the answer to become obvious as the campaign rolls on, they said, but none wants to be the first to put down more permanent stakes in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina at the expense of their work in Washington.

The issue hasn’t come to a head because it’s still early in the campaign season. Before this week, Harris had missed just one vote since she announced her bid. Other 2020 hopefuls have also been absent at times: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has skipped five votes since he got into the race for president, the majority of which were procedural votes on judicial nominees. Sanders also missed a final confirmation vote for judicial nominee Allison Rushing, who Democrats said lacked legal experience.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has missed just one vote since her announcement. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has missed two, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) missed two on the day of her announcement and one vote since then. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) has missed four votes, one of which was a procedural vote on the confirmation of Attorney General William Barr.

Most of the missed votes were procedural and none of them affected the outcome. It’s also not unusual for senators to miss votes from time to time, even if they aren’t running for president.

But senators at times have gone out of their way not to miss votes. After announcing her exploratory committee on Jan. 15, Gillibrand moved up her campaign's first news conference the following day in Troy, N.Y., to make sure she didn't miss a vote on a bipartisan bill that rebuked the Trump administration for relaxing Russian sanctions, which needed 60 votes to advance.

Monday’s GOP disaster aid package, which was opposed by the other Democrats running for president, was a prime example of the power Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wields to tweak the Democratic hopefuls. While the measure included money for Iowa, the early caucus state, Democrats opposed it after Trump reportedly told Republicans last week that Puerto Rico was getting too much aid. It needed 60 votes to move forward but received just 44.

Harris, who last week signaled her opposition to the bill, said in a statement that natural disasters have devastated millions of people across the country and that her responsibilities extend beyond her home state.

“I’ve seen the damage up close in California, and I promised that I would do everything I can to help get them back on their feet,” she said. “But this administration has played politics with disaster funding by failing to fully assist California wildfire victims and the millions of American citizens still struggling in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Survivors of these disasters are hurting, and they deserve immediate and meaningful support — this bill does not do that.”

Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist who worked for former Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, said he has no problem with senators missing votes from time to time. “But I would have advised Sen. Harris to be in town for yesterday’s votes,” he said.

Still, Manley doesn’t believe it matters much to voters unless lawmakers “are totally MIA from the Senate. Then the charge that taxpayers are getting ripped off has a chance to stick."

Senators have come under fire in previous election years for prioritizing their presidential campaigns over their legislative duties. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) missed one-third of the votes in 2015 when he was running for the White House, prompting a Florida newspaper, the Sun Sentinel, to call on him to resign.

Reid jumped in, too, saying the Florida senator should be sued “to pay back all the money that the federal government paid him while he was off playing around, running for president.”

Pressed on his absenteeism, Rubio pointed to the votes that Barack Obama missed during the 2008 campaign and that John Kerry skipped during the 2004 campaign. Kerry missed nearly 90 percent of Senate votes in 2004, while Obama missed about 65 percent in 2008.

Asked Wednesday at the Capitol how she’s juggling her role in the Senate with her early campaigning, Klobuchar said, “I’ve been able to do it.” The Minnesota Democrat noted that she recently had a meeting with her state's governor about flood preparation, and that she’s continuing to work with Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) on funding for various projects.

“It’s a well-worn tradition to go after a senator’s attendance. But ultimately, the state the senator is campaigning in is excited to receive them, and their home states are presumably excited that they are running for president,” said Michael Trujillo, a Democratic strategist. “If this is over the course of nine months, or a year they are on the trail, it can become an issue for them. It really comes down to what they decide to do over the course of this calendar year and into next.”