New polls have extinguished any hopes Vice President Kamala Harris may have had of seeking her boss’s job one day. Americans clearly prefer President Joe Biden over her — and, really, anyone else but her.
Despite his low popularity, Biden still generates more enthusiasm among voters compared to Harris, according to a recent poll, which also explored Harris’s potential to defeat former President Donald Trump if she were to become the Democratic presidential nominee. Notably, influential Democratic figures, including David Axelrod, have previously suggested that Biden should not seek a second term for the benefit of the country. However, both poll respondents and elected Democrats express reservations about Harris’s ability to succeed Biden as a definitive choice.
The Western Journal highlighted a poll conducted by Politico and Morning Consult that surveyed Americans about Harris’s chances against Trump in a potential head-to-head matchup. Only one-third of respondents believed that the former California attorney general could prevail. More concerning for Harris, only three out of five Democrats stated they would vote for her. Even more starkly, only 25% of independent voters said they would support her.
Harris, who has become defensive in public and private when confronted about her lack of popularity, will have to search for a silver lining in these statistics. While she outperformed Trump with 42% support when it comes to displaying leadership, she still struggles with favorability; 42% of voters prefer her while 52% do not.
Typically, vice presidents have higher approval ratings than their presidents due to the lower profile and controversy associated with their role. However, Harris has been an exception. During her first year in office, her approval rating dropped to just 28%, setting a record low for any vice president at that stage of their first term. Harris later faced additional scrutiny after she criticized a fact-checking organization for not acknowledging her “great approval ratings.” She was subsequently fact-checked again, with the organization pointing out that the approval ratings she referenced were from over 100 polls ago.
“Well, there are polls that also say I have great approval ratings,” Harris told ABC News in August of 2023. “I think the point that has to be made is that there are attempts to create distractions away from the accomplishments of our administration.” That prompted PolitiFact to fire back that “public polling results do not support her assertion.”
“At the time the ABC News interview aired, FiveThirtyEight’s average was 39.7% approving of Harris’ performance and 52.3% disapproving, for a net of 12.6 percentage points ‘underwater,’” PolitiFact wrote in 2023. “Meanwhile, the most recent poll in which more people approved than disapproved of Harris’ performance was from October 2021 and was more than 100 polls ago. That poll, conducted by Saint Leo University, found Harris above water by 2 percentage points, which was within the poll’s 3-point margin of error.”
Disclaimer: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.