One very central dynamic in the recent saga of Democratic anxiety over Joe Biden’s chances against Donald Trump, given the weaknesses he displayed in his first 2024 debate, has been the role of his understudy, Vice-President Kamala Harris. My colleague Gabriel Debenedetti explained the problem nearly two years ago as the “Kamala Harris conundrum”:
“Top party donors have privately worried to close Obama allies that they’re skeptical of Harris’s prospects as a presidential candidate, citing the implosion of her 2020 campaign and her struggles as VP. Jockeying from other potential competitors, like frenemy Gavin Newsom, suggests that few would defer to her if Biden retired. Yet Harris’s strength among the party’s most influential voters nonetheless puts her in clear pole position.”
The perception that Harris is too unpopular to pick up the party banner if Biden dropped it, but too well-positioned to be pushed aside without huge collateral damage, was a major part of the mindset of political observers when evaluating Democratic options after the debate. But now fresher evidence of Harris’s public standing shows she’s just as viable as many of the candidates floated in fantasy scenarios about an “open convention,” “mini-primary,” or smoke-filled room that would sweep away both parts of the Biden-Harris ticket.
For a good while now, Harris’s job-approval numbers have been converging with Biden’s after trailing them initially. These indicate dismal popularity among voters generally, but not in a way that makes her an unacceptable replacement candidate should she be pressed into service in an emergency. As of now, her job-approval ratio in the FiveThirtyEight averages is 37.1 percent approve to 51.2 percent disapprove. Biden’s is 37.4 percent approve to 56.8 percent disapprove. In the favorability ratios tracked by RealClearPolitics, Harris is at 38.3 favorable to 54.6 percent unfavorable, while Biden is at 39.4 percent favorable to 56.9 percent unfavorable. There’s just not a great deal of difference other than slightly lower disapproval/unfavorable numbers for the veep.
On the crucial measurement of viability as a general-election candidate against Trump, there wasn’t much credible polling prior to the post-debate crisis. An Emerson survey in February 2024 showed Harris trailing Trump by 3 percent (43 percent to 46 percent), which was a better showing than Gavin Newsom (down ten points, 36 percent to 46 percent) or Gretchen Whitmer (down 12 points, 33 percent to 45 percent).
After the debate, though, there was a sudden cascade of polling matching Democratic alternatives against Trump, and while Harris’s strength varied, she consistently did as well as or better than the fantasy alternatives. The first cookie on the plate was a one-day June 28 survey from Data for Progress, which showed virtually indistinguishable polling against Trump by Biden, Harris, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker, Josh Shapiro, and Gretchen Whitmer. All of them trailed Trump by 2 to 3 percent among likely voters.
Then two national polls released on July 2 showed Harris doing better than other feasible Biden alternatives. Reuters/Ipsos (which showed Biden and Trump tied) had Harris within a point of Trump, while Newsom trailed by three points, Andy Beshear by four, Whitmer by five, and Pritzker by six points. Similarly, CNN showed Harris trailing Trump by just two points; Pete Buttigieg trailing by four points; and Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer trailing him by five points.
Emerson came back with a new poll on July 9 that wasn’t as sunny as some for Democrats generally (every tested name trailed Trump, with Biden down by three points). But again, Harris (down by six points) did better than Newsom (down eight points); Buttigieg and Whitmer (down ten points); and Shapiro (down 12 points).
There’s been some talk that Harris might help Democrats with base constituencies that are sour about Biden. There’s not much publicly available evidence testing that hypothesis, though the crosstabs in the latest CNN poll do show Harris doing modestly better than Biden among people of color, voters under the age of 35, and women.
The bottom line is that one element of the “Kamala Harris conundrum” needs to be reconsidered. There should be no real drop-off in support if Biden (against current expectations) steps aside in favor of his vice-president (the only really feasible “replacement” scenario at this point). She probably has a higher ceiling of support than Biden as well, but in any event, she would have a fresh opportunity to make a strong first or second impression on many Americans who otherwise know little about her.
I’m not sure that “most people” are that extreme. For sure, those that are appear pretty scary and I don’t think any amount of persuasion is going to change them. However the people in the mountain states or the Midwest that voted Republican in the last two elections (or longer-really since 1994) are beginning to redirect their dissatisfaction with the status quo. Eight years of Bush didn’t help them much.
The question is will they be pulled further to the right by McCain/Palin or will they return to the more moderate stance they have historically had. Someone has to connect with them like the Governor of Montana did.
The problem is, don’t you think, that compared with most voters, she is not that extreme? Since her speech, Obama’s lead has been destroyed…with ONE speech! and she will give hundreds more in the next 60 days.
We need less extreme people voting, but folks, it’s time to face facts..most people like the right wing extremism of the nominees.
I agree that it needs to be driven home that Palin’s views are extreme and are particularly extreme on issues that are important to women. Here is something that could be polished up and drive the point home.
“Didn’t Sarah Palin and her family look great at the RNC, especially so as she delivered her speech on Wednesday? But she really didn’t say much about issues, in particular issues that are important to women. One has to look toward John McCain to see what his ticket really thinks about issues essential to women. When asked what he thought about pro-choice, his response was that he “favored a constitutional amendment” making abortions illegal in the United States. One has to assume that he wouldn’t have picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, if she didn’t feel the same way. Look at what John McCain has said. That’s what you can expect if McCain/Palin are elected.”
Pushing back on mockery
This mockery worked very well against Kerry-Edwards in 2004, who never used it effectively against Bush and Cheney. Reagan used it against Carter successfully too.
I think the Dems have to hit back – not necessarily Obama or his campaign, but ads need to do some of this, and surrogates too. It is hard and dicey to push back with mockery, because of McCain’s vet/POW status, and because it could be seen as sexism against Palin.
On Gov. Palin
(1) Don’t mention Palin’s name without the adjective “extremist”. She is farther right than George Bush and Dick Cheney. She’s a Dick Cheney masquerading in lipstick and heels. She may be a better shot with a gun, but her policies are more off the mark. ‘Extremist’ captures her accurately and avoids patronizing her. Look at her positions on abortion, humans having no affect on global warming, & stem-cell research.
(2) At best, Palin is the biggest flipflopper in the race. At worst she has misrepresented herself. Examples: Bridge to nowhere, Chomping at the trough of congressional pork, troopergate.
(3) Oh, and the sum total of Palin’s international experience before she applied for a passport in 2006 is she’d been to Canada. (She subsequently visited US troops in three countries, Iraq, Kuwait and Germany). That’s worse than George Bush, and look where he got us on foreign policy.
On Sen. McCain
(4) Can we mock McCain and Palin both as blind agents of big oil? They don’t need to deal with lobbyists – they are the lobbyists for big oil! The new McCain-Palin ticket is like the Exxon-Mobil merger. Americans will be paying for the hundreds of millions that will go into the pockets of oil companies and their executives – just like Cheney and Bush. Are we going to let this country, and its decisions about foreign policy, have 4 more years of being driven by the handservants of oil companies? That’s worked great for the public/
(5) ‘Country First’?!?!? What about rich people’s pockets first?! That’s what this last 8 years have brought. We have numbers on this!!! McCain and his Bush economic policies (not to mention countless homes) promise the continuation of this.
(6) How abot mocking McCain for ‘not getting’ that his economic policies are the same as Bush’s? Does he not get the very phrase he used to describe his education policy (‘civil rights issue of our time’ – Bush in 2002; ‘civil rights issue of this century’ – McCain on Sept 4) was used by GW Bush early in his presidency? Have his advisers not pointed this out?
(7) Republicans have been poor stewards of the lives of American troops. Where is the outrage over the most important cost to America of this bungled war in Iraq? It is McCain and his party who pushed it. Surely we can name three or five servicemen/women who died due to the failure to fund adequate armor for Humvees? Yes we know and remember the victims of 9/11. But Afghanistan is where we should have pressed our military power, not the distraction in Iraq.
You can’t lose what you never had, and McCain never really had complete control of the Republican Party. His recognition of this political fact is evident in his acquiescence to the Christianist veto of his preferred running mates — Ridge and Lieberman — and his acceptance of the religious right’s candidate.