Democratic voters were publicly told in 2024 that Kamala Harris was the natural successor to President Joe Biden. Behind closed doors, according to a former party insider, the numbers told a very different story.
Lindy Li, a former Democratic National Committee fundraiser who worked with major Biden-Harris donors, claims in her new book, Unburdened, that an internal poll tested Harris against other potential replacements as pressure mounted on Biden to exit the race. The results, Li says, were damaging for the vice president.
Kamala Harris Came in Dead Last, Li Says
“Kamala Harris came in dead last,” Li told Fox News Digital. “It wasn’t even close.” She says the poll compared Harris with then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and that all three outperformed Harris.
Li describes the survey as an attempt to determine who could mount the strongest general-election challenge to Donald Trump, not simply who was most popular among Democratic voters. “The polling numbers went directly against the narrative that the party wanted to espouse,” she said. Fox News did not publish the poll’s methodology, sample size or complete results, and the underlying data has not been independently reviewed. The claim rests entirely on Li’s account.
That account stands in sharp contrast to what public polling showed at the time. According to the 2024 Democratic replacement polling conducted by ABC News, the Washington Post and Ipsos after Biden’s June debate, Harris led an open-ended question among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, with 29% support. Newsom received 7%, while Buttigieg and Whitmer each received 3%.
Why Party Leaders Chose Harris Anyway
Li argues that Democratic officials were well aware of the internal numbers but concluded that bypassing the country’s first Black and female vice president would ignite a damaging backlash within their own coalition. She pointed specifically to Black women as a decisive factor in the calculation.
They knew that skipping over Kamala Harris would be a slap in the face to the bedrock of the party, which is Black women in particular,” Li said. She also claims party officials feared an organized backlash from Harris supporters if she were passed over.
Biden withdrew from the race on July 21, 2024, and endorsed Harris shortly afterward. She rapidly consolidated Democratic support and secured the nomination without a contested convention.
More Allegations and What Comes Next
Li’s claims about the poll follow a separate allegation from her book that Harris was cultivating Biden’s major donors even while publicly insisting she stood firmly behind the president. Li told Fox that Harris held a donor call shortly before Biden withdrew and assured participants that Biden was staying in the race. It was all charade,” Li said, characterizing the call as cover while Harris simultaneously positioned herself to inherit Biden’s political operation.
Representatives for Harris did not respond to Fox News’s request for comment on the allegations. The internal poll Li describes has never been publicly released, and it remains unclear whether it will be. Until the underlying data surfaces, the full picture of what Democratic insiders knew, and when they knew it, stays incomplete.
