If Kamala Harris wants to be president one day, she faces a major uphill battle.
Recent polling has her favorability ratings underwater. Her RealClearPolitics average favorability is at 44 percent and her unfavorability is at 46 percent—a stark contrast to Joe Biden, who somehow manages to be above water with 52 percent average favorability and 43 percent unfavorability.
Joe Biden’s selection of Harris as his running mate was stunning in its own way, as she all but accused him of being a racist during the Democratic primary. However, Biden’s selection of Harris to join his ticket was, of course, largely a demographic decision. Biden declared early that he’d pick a woman as his running mate (he eventually said it would be a woman of color) before settling on Harris.
And yes, I do mean “settle.” Harris was so unlikeable during the campaign that her best moment was after she attacked Biden. Her brief blip in the polls quickly faded, and she dropped out before Iowa. To put it nicely, she wasn’t selected for her qualifications or her appeal to voters. I dare say Joe Biden didn’t even want to pick her in the first place. Biden put her in charge of the border crisis and then snubbed her for the job of holding diplomatic meetings in Tokyo in favor of his wife, who has zero political power in government. It seems that Harris’s only purpose in 2020 was to be the opposite of Joe Biden: young, not white, and female.
But even if Joe Biden runs for reelection in 2024, Kamala Harris will likely be a liability, not an asset. Few people honestly believe that Biden will finish one term, let alone two, and Kamala’s unfavorability is so low that she’d lose to Trump in a 2024 matchup, according to recent polling.
To put that in perspective, there were literally only five national polls in 2020 that had Trump beating Biden. Yes, 2020 polling was basically crap, and many had Biden with absurd double-digit leads; yet his “victory” hinged on less than 50,000 votes combined between three states. But, still, when polling has so often been skewed in favor of Democrats, Kamala Harris losing to Trump in polling is a red flag. Based on the numbers right now, Kamala Harris could share a similar fate as Spiro Agnew.
Of course, some believe she’s just waiting in the wings for Joe Biden to resign or for the 25th Amendment to be invoked, but even that scenario is problematic for the Democrats, as her poor numbers aren’t likely to be improved simply by ascending to the presidency via succession. She’s failed several leadership tests so far, proving she isn’t vice presidential material, let alone of presidential caliber. Americans clearly see that. I can barely see Joe Biden trying to defend his dumpster fire presidency, yet somehow, he seems more likely to pull it off in a campaign than Kamala. But it seems clear that in 2024, Kamala would be a liability at the bottom of the ticket and a disaster at the top.
