Kamala Harris drops out of 2020 presidential race

(JTA) — Kamala Harris, the junior senator from California, is dropping her presidential bid.

Kamala Harris failed to gain steam among the crowded field of Democratic contenders after a promising start. (Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images)

“My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue,” Harris, 54, told supporters in a message on Tuesday.

The former California attorney general had failed to gain steam among the crowded field of Democratic contenders after a promising start.

The daughter of a mother who immigrated from India and a father who immigrated from Jamaica, Harris is married to Douglas Emhoff, a Jewish lawyer.

The couple married in 2014 — Harris’ sister Maya officiated — and smashed a glass to honor Emhoff’s upbringing. Harris has a few other Jewish connections, too — including having collected money to plant trees in Israel as a kid.

To my supporters, it is with deep regret—but also with deep gratitude—that I am suspending my campaign today.

But I want to be clear with you: I will keep fighting every day for what this campaign has been about. Justice for the People. All the people.https://t.co/92Hk7DHHbR

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) December 3, 2019

Harris was among the candidates who are closest to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, speaking at its conferences in 2017 and 2018.

When AIPAC-critical leftists attempted earlier this year to depict Democratic candidates as boycotting the group’s conference, Harris made a point of posing in a photo with an AIPAC delegation. (There was, in any case, no boycott — AIPAC does not ask presidential candidates to speak before primaries begin.)

Harris voted early this year against a bill AIPAC favored targeting Israel boycotters, citing free speech concerns. However, unusually for a Democrat, she had barely any relationship with AIPAC’s liberal counterpart, J Street, and did not send a message to this year’s J Street conference.