With voters’ concerns about President Joe BidenAs age continues to haunt his chances for re-election, a new poll shows that his next in line, Vice President Kamala Harris, has serious doubts about her ability to win the presidency herself, or to do the job well if she does. would inherit.
The POLITICO/Morning poll shows that only a third of voters think it is likely that Harris would win an election if she became the Democratic nominee, and only three in five Democrats believe she would prevail. A quarter of independents think she would win.
That skepticism extends to her potential future role as leader of her party. Forty-two percent of voters described her as a strong leader, including three-quarters of Democrats but only a third of independents.
The poll shows Harris sharing the same poor ratings as Biden. Both are well underwater, Biden with 43 percent favorable and 54 percent unfavorable, Harris with 42 percent favorable and 52 percent unfavorable.
Harris’ efforts to restart after a rocky start appear to have paid some dividends among key Democratic constituencies, in ways that could move the needle in a close election. She outperformed Biden among black voters, a shift from when the two battled for the Democratic nomination four years ago. And among Democrats, she has widened her lead over potential rivals in a hypothetical 2028 matchup.
Harris also performed well on some key issues, such as abortion, while lagging on others, such as immigration.
Overall, the findings suggest that Harris is unlikely to allay voters’ fears about what would happen if Biden were no longer able to serve. Attitudes toward Harris could play a more pronounced role in the campaign than with a typical vice president, as voters believe the 81-year-old president will get another four-year term.
“She has done admirable work on reproductive health and issues important to the Black community and youth-related. But at the same time, she falls into the same place that many vice presidents fall into, which is that she doesn’t play a very public role outside of her area of expertise,” said RL Miller, a climate activist and retiring member of the Democratic Party. California National Committee. “People don’t associate her with issues like foreign policy, which is so important today. She is not credited with the larger international and domestic work.”
Miller describes herself as a “longtime fan of Kamala Harris” and said the vice president would be her first choice “if God forbid something were to happen to Biden.” But, Miller added, “I worry that Democrats have internalized the lesson of Hillary Clinton: that a woman can’t win. And I think it’s sad.”
Harris faces pessimism about her future role in the party from a bloc of Democrats and a much larger share of independents. The poll found that a majority of voters do not view Harris as a strong leader (48 percent versus 42 percent). They also don’t consider her trustworthy (46 percent to 43 percent).
Harris scored in the 70s among Democrats on both questions, but is in the mid-30s among independents. Voters were generally split on whether she is prepared for the job and whether she cares about people like her.
She performed relatively well on health care, gender inequality and LGBTQ+ rights, but is well below the majority when it comes to the extent to which voters trust her in handling immigration (40 percent), relations with China (37 percent) and the Israeli-Palestinian government. conflicts (35 percent).
Harris is working to overcome her uneven arrival at the White House, a period marked by embarrassing mistakes, a politically toxic portfolio that included immigration and internal staff turmoil that contributed to the perception that she was lacking leadership. And despite spending a lot of time on the road, voters have continually wondered why they don’t see and hear from her more.
“We talk to Americans and they can’t really give voice to all the achievements of the president and the vice president, even if they have been big and super important,” said Gretchen Barton, a Democratic strategist who has researched voters. across swing states. “That’s a real problem because ultimately people are looking for someone who can get things done and waiting to see what is delivered.”
The POLITICO | The Morning Consult poll shows Biden and Trump tied at 45 percent each (a subsequent Morning Consult poll shows Biden ahead of Trump by 1 percentage point. Democrats have begun spending tens of millions of dollars in TV ads to boost performance of the government to commend.
While Harris’s appeal is closely tied to Biden’s, some of the negative perceptions of her emerging in the polls crystallized in the first months of their terms, according to a half-dozen Democratic advisers who reviewed parts of the survey. Several people said Harris has a rare opportunity in the coming months — given the number of eyeballs on her — to start easing concerns.
“The vice president has the opportunity to reset any impressions about her and rebrand herself in a debate, at the convention and over the long run of the campaign,” said Fernand Amandi, a strategist and pollster in Florida who worked for both presidents including Barack Obama. presidential campaigns. “Those will be the opportunities where America, as a nation, can take another look and see if they see a future president, or someone who is just a potential presidential candidate.”
After a rocky start, Harris has consolidated her position over the past year, becoming the White House’s top envoy on abortion rights protections and bolstering her foreign policy credibility by filling in at major summits take on Biden and emerge as a formidable campaign fundraiser.
“If you look at the trajectory of her vice presidency, it has been really positive, both in terms of the significant international exposure she has had and the role she has played as a spokesperson on issues of central importance to Democratic voters: reproductive rights, inclusion, upward mobility and climate change,” said Joel K. Goldstein, a historian of the vice presidency who has closely followed Harris.
“The reality is that she has done quite a lot and is performing very well relative to her predecessors, but in this climate it is difficult for a vice president to command attention and get attention,” Goldstein said. “If the government’s numbers go up, I think its numbers will go up.”
Harris’ favorability has largely stagnated since Morning Consult began regularly tracking the vice president in March 2023. Still, there are signs that her efforts are resonating, at least among some crucial voters.
Harris’ standing with key communities — including 67 percent favorability among Black voters versus 23 percent unfavorability — represents a shift for the vice president, who had trailed Biden with Black voters since they participated in the 2020 primaries and after he left her had chosen to run alongside him, noted Cameron Easley, the top U.S. political analyst at Morning Consult. Biden’s numbers among black voters were 63 percent to 31 percent.
Harris’ favorability among Hispanic voters was also slightly better than the president’s.
“She’s good at galvanizing active bases that Democrats really need — young black voters, black women. These are constituencies that Democrats can never take for granted,” said Trip Yang, a Democratic strategist based in New York.
And voters’ confidence in Harris on other issues important to Democrats registered in greater numbers than her overall favorability, with a majority saying they trusted her to handle abortion. Her scores on voting rights were 49 percent, protecting Medicare and Social Security 47 percent, and addressing climate change 46 percent.
Yang pointed to Harris’ own background and her reach among Asian Americans. “The way the staff is positioning her has been smart,” he added.
As Harris focuses on the 2024 campaign, her place on the list remains a source of debate: Thirty-six percent of voters say Biden should replace Harris with another Democrat, while 39 percent want him to stick with Harris (as he said plan is to do). . Another quarter didn’t know or had no opinion.
A significant share of Democrats and independents — 23 percent and 34 percent, respectively — believe Harris should be removed as vice president.
Other questions focusing on Harris’ future underscore how divided voters are over her prospects — with Democrats strongly backing her in the 2028 primaries but still unconvinced of her ability to defeat a Republican.
Harris was far ahead among Democratic voters with 41 percent in a hypothetical 2028 showdown between several other figures in the party: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (15 percent), California Governor Gavin Newsom (14 percent), Michigan Governor , Gretchen Whitmer. (5 percent), Arizona Senator Mark Kelly (4 percent) and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (2 percent). Seventeen percent of Democrats didn’t know or had no opinion.
Among all voters, Harris led with 21 percent, followed by Buttigieg and Newsom (10 percent), Whitmer and Kelly (4 percent) and Shapiro (3 percent).
Morning Consult asked similar questions in December 2021 and again in September 2022 about a possible 2024 Democratic primary without Biden. In both surveys, Harris was the frontrunner, but her share of support from Democratic voters was much smaller.
Voters were more pessimistic about Harris’s electoral prospects in a general election.
Less than 60 percent of Democrats say it is likely she would win an election for president if she were the party’s nominee, while nearly a third of her own party’s voters see her victory as unlikely.
Thirty-four percent of voters think she would win the White House, compared to 57 percent who have doubts about the vice president’s electability. A quarter of independents think she would win, compared to 62 percent who think she would lose.
And just over a third of independents think she would make a good president.
The poll surveyed 3,996 registered voters between May 28 and 29 and has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
“Just because you are vice president doesn’t mean you will be the nominee or that you will be elected, but it is still the best presidential springboard,” Goldstein said of Harris and the 2028 summit. election. “Right now, her future is very much tied to Biden’s.”
