Kamala Harris is running for president. Can she beat Donald Trump?

Just hours after President Joe Biden endorsed her as his successor, Vice President Kamala Harris quickly jumped into the 2024 presidential contest, saying “My intention is to earn and win this nomination.”

She has a decent chance.

Polls show she runs slightly better than Biden against Republican nominee Donald Trump

The latest CBS News/YouGov poll of likely voters, taken last week, showed Trump leading Harris 51% to 48%. He led Biden 52% to 47%.

This will be Harris’ second attempt at winning the White House. Her first, in 2019, fizzled quickly. It began when she announced her bid before a crowd of thousands in Oakland, but got no momentum and was over by December.

Her poll numbers could still use some work. A recent Economist/YouGov poll last week found her viewed favorably by 55% of registered voters. Trump and Biden also topped 50% in unfavorable ratings.

But at least at the start, Harris’ run will be much different than in 2020. She not only starts with the backing of the incumbent president, but with strong support from the Democratic rank and file.

A YouGov poll earlier this month found 82% of Democrats viewed her favorably.

The new nominee will be formally chosen by Democratic delegates to the party’s national convention, which formally convenes next month.

Harris issued a lengthy statement Sunday praising Biden “for his extraordinary leadership as President of the United States and for his decades of service to our country. His remarkable legacy of accomplishment is unmatched in modern American history, surpassing the legacy of many Presidents who have served two terms in office.”

Harris praises Biden

She added was grateful for his friendship, saying it reached back years.

“I first came to know President Biden through his son Beau. We were friends from our days working together as attorneys general of our home states,” she said.

“As we worked together, Beau would tell me stories about his Dad. The kind of father—and the kind of man—he was. And the qualities Beau revered in his father are the same qualities, the same values, I have seen every single day in Joe’s leadership as President: His honesty and integrity.”

Beau Biden, who died in 2015, was Delaware’s attorney general from 2007 to 2015. Harris was California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017. She left after being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016.

Harris Sunday praised Biden’s decision to step down.

“With this selfless and patriotic act, President Biden is doing what he has done throughout his life of service: putting the American people and our country above everything else,” she said.

She called herself “honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination.”

And she declared herself ready to run for his job, saying, “Over the past year, I have traveled across the country, talking with Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election. And that is what I will continue to do in the days and weeks ahead. I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.”

Trump has not endorsed that conservative agenda.