Nearly 60 percent of Americans have some doubt that Vice President Kamala Harris worked at McDonald's as a college student, according to a new poll.
The survey, which the Daily Mail released Saturday in collaboration with pollster J.L. Partners, shows 37 percent of Americans "don't believe that Harris worked at McDonald's," while 21 percent are unsure. Forty-two percent believe Harris toiled under the Golden Arches, according to the poll.
Harris has made the job a centerpiece of her biography in an attempt to illustrate what the Washington Post described as her "humble background." Harris, however, did not discuss the job until she ran for president in 2019—including in her two memoirs—and did not include it on a 1987 job application that asked her to list every position she held in the last 10 years, the Washington Free Beacon reported in August. At the same time, Harris's campaign has tweaked its story about the job, first stating that Harris worked at McDonald's to "pay her way" through college and then acknowledging that "she really took the summer job just to earn a bit more spending money." Neither Harris nor her campaign has substantiated the claim.
Donald Trump responded to the controversy with a made-for-TV appearance at a Bucks County, Pa., McDonald's, where the former president cooked fries and manned the drive thru. His visit became the most known story of the election cycle, according to an Echelon Insights poll released Friday.
The New York Times covered Harris's claim in an Oct. 20 report that called skepticism about the job "burgerism," a new form of "birtherism," a reference to the belief that former president Barack Obama was not born in the United States. The Times said the Harris campaign "did not make any of Ms. Harris's friends or family members available for interviews about their recollections of her experience." It nonetheless concluded that Trump's allegation that Harris did not work at McDonald's "appears to be false."
The paper's conclusion was based in large part on a source, Wanda Kagan, who said that Harris's late mother told her about the job. The Times described Kagan as "a close friend of Ms. Harris's when they attended high school together in Montreal."
The Times did not disclose that Kagan is now a full-throated Harris supporter who has appeared alongside the vice president at several campaign events and served as her surrogate on television during the Democratic National Convention, the Free Beacon reported last month. Kagan has regularly socialized or campaigned with Harris since April, including the evening before the Times published its report, when Kagan attended a birthday party for Harris at the White House.
"It’s an emotional and chilling ride, and I’m just overwhelmed with happiness for my friend, and I’m happy to be alive to be able to witness her now fighting for the people of America," Kagan told MSNBC during the Democratic convention in August.