The Democratic National Convention certainly left me scratching my head. The narrative the party pushed was that Kamala Harris was this immensely popular figure, the second coming of Barack Obama if you will. How is it possible that the party that rejected Harris, the least popular vice president in the history of polling, as a presidential candidate four years earlier so easily canonized her? It was all phony, and that's why she'll eventually crash in the polls.
I'm not trying to give you a false sense of confidence. Harris could win if we let our guard down. However, the foundation for her campaign is extremely weak, and we only need to look to the Democrats to see why.
Concerns about Kamala's weakness go way back. Former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), a key Joe Biden advisor, had serious reservations about Harris and actively worked to prevent Biden from selecting her as the vice-presidential nominee.
Even after she became vice president, concerns about Kamala continued, especially as the 2024 campaign heated up. In February 2023, The New York Times reported that some of Biden's supporters were concerned that Harris could be a political liability for the ticket largely due to her limited list of accomplishments.
In September, Eric Levitz argued in New York Magazine that Biden should "drop Kamala Harris" because of her poor approval ratings and negative public perceptions of her competence. He predicted that her numbers would worsen in the presidential spotlight, citing how Hillary Clinton's popularity plummeted during her presidential campaign.
“These disastrous polls have some arguing for ditching President Biden and mounting a serious alternative candidate. California Governor Gavin Newsom’s name has been floated in this context. But this would be a mistake,” Newsweek editor-at-large Tom Roger wrote last year. “The Democrats shouldn’t replace President Biden; they should replace Vice President Kamala Harris, who is even more unpopular, and who would replace President Biden in the event of an unfortunate circumstance related to his age and capabilities.”
Related: Here's Why Dem Pollsters Are Panicking About Kamala Harris’s Campaign
It wasn't just the media that was worried about Harris, either. CNN reported in March of last year that Democrat Party leaders were concerned she, not Biden, was hurting the party's ticket. "Multiple Democratic leaders contend that if people don’t start feeling more positive about the next person in the line of succession, they might turn away from the ticket entirely," the report said. Just six months ago, Douglas MacKinnon, a former White House and Pentagon official, disclosed that he had spoken with several "high-level Democrats" and discovered that not a single one of them wanted Harris on the ticket.
You can see why Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi didn't immediately endorse her after Biden dropped out. Now we're expected to believe that there's all this enthusiasm for Kamala today. There's a reason why Democratic voters rejected her first presidential campaign. There's a reason she is a historically unpopular vice president. There's a reason why so many on the left wanted her, not Biden, off the ticket. And those are the reasons Kamala's "sugar high" in the polls will fade.
