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In early August 2020, Snopes readers asked about social media posts stating that U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., had referred to 18- to 24-year-old potential voters as stupid. Here's a screen shot of one such post, which was widely seen on Facebook: Harris was selected on Aug. 11, 2020, to run alongside the Democratic party's presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden. She is viewed favorably among various voter demographics, including young voters. It's true that Harris made a remark calling people in the 18-24 age range stupid during a speech in 2014, when she was attorney general of California. But she wasn't directly talking about voters. The missing context from this claim is that as Harris recounted various efforts to reduce incarceration and recidivism among young adults, she wryly commented on the decision-making tendencies of those newly entering adulthood. The comment came as she was describing Back on Track, a program she launched in 2005 when she was district attorney of San Francisco. The program allowed young people facing first-time, low-level drug sale charges to have their cases dismissed if they met intensive educational and career achievement goals. Here is the quote with more context included: Harris did refer to 18- to 24-year-olds as stupid during a speech in 2014. However, she wasn't talking about voters in that age range so much as she was talking about a developmental stage of life for all young adults. And she seems to have used the tongue-in-cheek jab to illustrate a broader need for empathy when it comes to how bad decisions can lead some young people to be prosecuted as adults at a time in their lives when what they need instead is guidance. The speech can be viewed here:
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