Katherine Harris

Katherine Harris grew up in a wealthy household in southern Florida, where her father was a very prominent banker and her grandfather a powerful landowner who grew citrus and ranched cattle. After graduating from Bartow High School, she earned a Bachelor's Degree in History with a specialization in International Trade & Negotiations from Agnes Scott College, and then earned a Master Degree in Public Administration from Harvard University. Her professional life began as a marketing executive for IBM, then became Vice President of a commercial real estate firm. Like many from such a background, Harris was active in public life, taking part in community affairs and also participating in Republican events. This lead to her seeking office herself, and in 1994, she was elected to the Florida state Senate. After serving a full term, she ran for Secretary of State in 1998. She wasn't expected to win, as her primary opponent was the incumbent, but won an easy victory in the primary and then a competitive general election. In early 2000, she had interest in running for the United States Senate, but was persuaded that she hadn't held her current office long enough. But that year, she became more prominent than any candidate for the U.S. Senate that year. In the Presidential election, Democratic Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush finished in the closest Presidential election since 1968, and in Florida the results were a virtual dead heat. Bush appeared to have won by a few hundred votes out of millions cast, and Gore called for a recount. Being in charge of vote tabulations, Harris was suddenly thrust into the national spotlight. She was immediately accused by Democrats of bias in Bush's favor and vilified in the national press. Two automatic recounts showed Bush winning by a tiny margin, but Gore wanted to conduct a manual recount run by county officials in only four counties, all of them solidly Democratic. Harris regarded this as illegal and supported the Bush campaign's efforts to halt this. After weeks of legal wrangling, Bush was declared the winner. But for Harris, it was a huge ordeal. However, she became a heroine among Republican activists, and she was sent huge amounts of flowers by sympathizers, she some of which she distributed to charitable organizations. In the next year, she published a book, "Center of the Storm," which was a moderate success. In 2002, with her office being abolished by a 1998 voter referendum, she ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in a district that includes her home town of Sarasota. She won, but in the general election ran behind party lines. In 2004, she again considered running for the U.S. Senate, but Republican activists persuaded her not to run. In 2006, she announced that she would definitely run for the United States Senate against Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. Polls show her trailing badly in the general election and that voters in Florida viewed her negatively, but she refused to withdraw, in spite of many requests from her fellow Republicans that she do so. Her campaign stumbled many times, and her errors and gaffes were widely reported in the press. Republicans even tried to find someone to defeat her in the primary, but were unsuccessful. Nelson, though not highly popular, started out well ahead and expanded his lead as the campaign went on. He defeated Harris by a wide margin. In addition to her ignominious defeat, Harris faced anger and resentment from Republicans who claim that she engineered a Republican defeat in a year when Democrats won control of the U.S. Senate. After her defeat, she quietly served in Congress until her term expired. She then returned to private life.