The Democratic Party is in chaos as Joe Biden appears to be resisting calls to drop out. But, according to reports, pressure is growing, and it may not be an exaggeration to say that the party is on the verge of a civil war over Biden's future. One name that comes up a lot as his most likely successor is Kamala Harris. But could she win?
In general, it would be a no-brainer to say that Biden’s vice president would be the ideal candidate to replace him if he is eventually forced out. But this is no normal situation. Kamala Harris is the most unpopular vice president in the history of polling, a terrible campaigner, and is as charming as a mosquito bite.
Still, she seems widely favored as Biden’s replacement, if for no other reason than she would inherit most of Joe Biden’s campaign war chest—though there are other considerations as well. If Biden were to eventually be convinced to drop out, passing over “the first black female vice president” would likely backfire on the Democrats, who are obsessed with identity politics.
So, even though conventional wisdom says that Kamala Harris isn’t the candidate Democrats should gamble the election on, there is a case to be made she is the only choice. If she can inherit Biden’s campaign cash, that would give her a huge leg up over any alternative, who would now have to raise money almost from scratch. And it’s anyone’s guess if big Democrat donors would be reluctant to donate money to anyone who may take over for Biden, considering how many months they’ve been deceived by everyone — including Kamala Harris. With less than four months to go, money may be why Democrats have to go with Harris, especially now that Trump has destroyed the cash gap with the Biden-Harris campaign.
So, the question is, does Harris stand a chance? There isn’t a ton of polling pitting Harris against Donald Trump, but for the most part, such polls have generally shown her doing no better than Joe Biden or even worse. That said, FiveThirtyEight has looked at what little polling is available and attempted to forecast her performance.
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According to a polls-only version of the FiveThirtyEight forecasting model, which compares candidates on equal terms without other factors, Harris slightly edges out Biden in Electoral College chances: 38% versus 35%. In other words, there’s virtually no difference. They have similar odds against Trump, and they’re not good.
State-specific analysis indicates Biden fares better than Harris in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, whereas Harris holds stronger odds in Nevada.
In FiveThirtyEight's forecast of the national popular vote, Harris performs only slightly better than Biden against Trump. The model predicts Trump would beat Harris by 1.5 points and Biden by 2.1 points. "However, this could be an artifact of our model not having any Harris-versus-Trump polls that include independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who tends to take slightly more votes away from Democrats than Republicans when included in a poll,” explains G. Elliott Morris of FiveThirtyEight.
However, Harris's slight popular vote advantage is largely offset by a greater Electoral College bias against her. In the Biden-Trump matchup, FiveThirtyEight predicts that Biden would need to win the popular vote by just 1.1 points to secure the presidency. However, Harris would need a 3.5-4 point popular vote lead to win.
However, when considering other factors beyond polls, Harris is a significantly weaker candidate than Biden. FiveThirtyEight's full forecast model, incorporating economic and political variables, gives Biden a 48% chance of winning the Electoral College, while Harris has only a 31% chance.
The question Democrats have to ask themselves is whether it’s worth the risk.
