

Wasn’t there some type of public option he could buy into? That wouldn’t work, Harris said in front of his colleagues during an orientation - he needed it now. Upon arriving in Washington, Harris was told that he wasn’t eligible for his publicly funded health insurance until he was sworn in. Harris won handily, but then quickly made a fool of himself post-election. Kratovil opposed the public option, but Harris still made the issue the centerpiece of his campaign. A physician, Harris centered his 2010 campaign on opposition to the Affordable Care Act, equating a public health insurance option with a government takeover of health care. Harris beat Kratovil easily in a rematch, and hasn’t had a significant challenge since. The climate was much more favorable for Republicans in 2010, as the tea party wave swept them into power. Harris ran so far to the right during his primary that Gilchrest endorsed the Democrat, and Harris lost in the general election to Frank Kratovil. Wayne Gilchrest, challenging the Vietnam War veteran for being insufficiently supportive of the war in Iraq. He again primaried a Republican, this time taking on moderate GOP Rep. In 2008, Harris made his first run for federal office. Harris, then a state senator, called it “poison” and made national headlines by threatening to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars from the university if anybody pressed play. One of his first high-profile battles was with the University of Maryland over a student group’s plan to screen an explicit film on campus.
#U.s. rep. andy harris full#
Yet Harris, who has served in Congress since 2010, first ran for the state Senate in 1998 in a primary against the GOP’s minority leader, challenging him as too moderate for his lack of a full commitment to a late-term abortion bill. Harris’s rhetorical slide to the center in the closing months of his current campaign reflects a nationwide move by House Republicans, who spent every election cycle since 2010 vowing to repeal Obamacare but are now feeling heat from constituents. Though his voting record suggests otherwise, Harris said at a debate with Colvin in Easton, Maryland, that he will stand up to President Donald Trump when need be.

Having run for Congress as an opponent of the Affordable Care Act, Harris is now a strong defender of making sure that insurance companies don’t discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. On Tuesday, Harris is facing Democrat Jesse Colvin, an Army Ranger whose campaign ad, which features Colvin and his Republican wife, a former police officer, at a shooting range, picked up significant media attention in the region. “While Marylanders remain appalled by the hate-filled attacks against Jewish Americans in Pittsburgh last week, Congressman Harris owes it to his constituents to condemn Steve King,” Baltimore County Democratic Central Committee chair Tara Ebersole said in a recent statement. Now, as King faces a backlash for his white supremacist ties, Harris has receded into the background, sticking as close as possible to Maryland’s moderate Republican governor, Larry Hogan, for cover.īut with the election fast approaching, local Democrats are drawing attention to Harris’s ties to King. In the decades since, Harris and King have become partners in the right-wing Freedom Caucus and have mutual adoration for eastern European fascists.

Harris, a Republican who represents Maryland’s Eastern Shore and parts of the Baltimore suburbs, rose to prominence while taking positions so extreme that he managed to make headlines as a state legislator. Steve King, is attempting to transform himself into the very type of moderate he beat a decade ago on his march to power. Andy Harris, a close friend and ally of embattled Iowa Rep. Facing his first serious threat to re-election, Maryland Rep.
