The coup is complete. After weeks of immense pressure, Joe Biden has been forced off the Democratic ticket. As predicted, the narrative being pushed now is all about how excited and energized the Democrats are now that Kamala Harris has been effectively crowned as the party's nominee. Fundraising is going strong, and the campaign has been reborn. But, the honeymoon is likely to end quickly once Democrats discover that Kamala Harris hasn't significantly improved their chances of winning the presidency in November.
Kamala Harris was always the likely successor to Joe Biden. That was essentially the entire point of her being on the ticket. Joe Biden was a means to an end, and no one can convince me that Biden actually wanted to pick her. During the 2020 Democratic primary, Harris said she believed the women who accused him of sexual misconduct and essentially called him racist for his past willingness to work with Democrat segregationists to oppose busing. But he chose her anyway, and besides the fact that she's the "first black woman" to be vice president, she's literally the only candidate who could inherit Biden's campaign war chest.
However, it's soon going to be apparent that she's not the best the Democrats can offer. She's the most unpopular vice president in polling history, which is a terrible position to start with. And for all the talk about her experience as a prosecutor being such a tremendous asset, her 2020 presidential campaign was a joke. She dropped out before a single primary election, and was outlasted by vanity candidates who never had a chance.
Related: Flashback: When the Media Urged Biden to Ditch Kamala to Save His Campaign
NBC’s Steve Kornacki noted this week that Kamala fares "not really any better" than Biden against Trump.
"Take a look a this," he explained. "This is the average of all the polls — your'e talking about since the debate — that tested Kamala against Donald Trump. Trump 47%, Harris 46%. In the same set of polls, when it was Joe Biden, 47% for Trump and 45% for Biden."
Kornacki continued, "The Democratic number on average goes up from 45 to 46. I think it underscores for Democrats, they view this move as something that's going to improve their chances in the general election. That is based more on hope than it is on the numbers right now.
Konecki's analysis dived into the favorability ratings of key political figures. Joe Biden has long struggled with poor numbers: 36% favorable and 57% unfavorable, based on an average of polls from the last month. Kamala Harris isn't faring much better, with 38% favorable and 52% unfavorable ratings. For comparison, Donald Trump's ratings stand at 41% favorable and 55% unfavorable. In all three cases, the majority of voters hold unfavorable impressions.
"So, again, from the Democratic standpoint here, they think Harris being reintroduced as a presidential candidate, getting a different look, they think these numbers can improve for her, both in the favorables and in the horse race against Trump. But we don't know. As you say, she has not really been tested. Her name never got to a primary ballot in 2020. She dropped out a couple of months before that.
NBC's Kornacki: Idea That Kamala Harris Will Do Better Than Biden Is "Based More On Hope" Than Any Numbershttps://t.co/vkeO04Cr7g
— RCP Video (@rcpvideo) July 22, 2024
"She has not really been tested. Her name never got to a primary ballot in 2020. She dropped out a couple of months before that." pic.twitter.com/ubt6eM1gfm
At the time Joe Biden dropped out, Trump was ahead by three points in the RealClearPolitics (RCP) average. Trump's current lead in the RCP average against Harris is about two points. That's hardly a seismic shift in the race. In the end, Trump was leading on the issues before the debate, and Kamala Harris owns the record of the Biden administration.
I don't doubt that when we see some fresh polling on a Trump vs. Harris race, Harris will likely be going through a bounce that shows her better positioned than Biden to win the race, and maybe even leading in more battleground states. But the fact is that fundamentally, there's little change, and it won't take long for the race to settle into the same pre-debate dynamic.
