It wasn’t long after Vice-President Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party nominee and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz became her running mate that the pair became accused of being “the most liberal members of Congress.” To evaluate this argument, I give it the acid test. I looked at data from the American Conservative Union (ACU), now run by CPAC. And in 2020, Harris was just as liberal as a former ex-Democratic representative who now backs Trump.

ACU scores, now CPAC scores, is taken from about 20-30 congressional votes. It’s a fraction of how many votes a candidate takes (perhaps a tenth), but it gives us a rough estimate of how members of the House of Representatives and Senate voted. Scores closer to zero mean the politician is more liberal, while closer to 100 means the candidate is more conservative.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in Georgia. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His Twitter account is @JohnTures2.