Vice President Harris has a low favorability rating. Would Democrats back her if Biden doesn’t run?

As speculation about President Joe Biden’s viability in the presidential race grows, the president insists he’s in for the long haul. But if he did step aside, Democrats are signaling they’re ready to rally around his vice president, Kamala Harris.

The problem is, Harris is viewed by voters even less favorably than Biden or Donald Trump.

Since Biden stumbled badly in the June 27 debate with Trump, Harris has been in the spotlight as the most logical alternative.

She has consistently said she’s solidly behind Biden. “The President is and will remain our party’s nominee, and Vice President Harris is proud to be his running mate, and looks forward to serving at his side for four more years,” Brian Fallon, Harris’s campaign communications director, told The Bee.

Harris fared best with the public in January, 2021, just before being sworn into office, when 51% in the CNN-SRSS national poll of registered voters viewed her favorably. Biden was at 59%

Both numbers plunged as time went on. In the most recent survey, taken after the 81-year-old Biden’s troubled June 27 debate with Trump, the president was viewed favorably by 34% of registered voters and Harris by 29%. Trump was seen favorably by 39%.

“The very nature of the vice presidency presents a challenge in terms of connections with the public, and when you add in the intersection of Harris’s gender identity, multiracial background and California roots it seems a barrier to broad public acceptance is created,” said Chris Borick, director of the Muhlenberg Institute of Public Opinion in Pennsylvania.

He found that “these factors, along with her personal style, don’t easily mesh with many Americans’ comfort zone and Harris ultimately emerges with a classic likability problem.”

The Harris record

“I’m sure her past as a California attorney general and senator would come up in the campaign,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political analysis firm.

Harris, 59, was San Francisco’s top prosecutor from 2004 to 2011. In 2010, she won the race to become attorney general, serving until 2017, when she was elected to the Senate.

As attorney general, she declared herself the state’s “top cop” during a talk at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. During her tenure, some of her actions were criticized by many in the state’s communities of color.

She opposed a 2004 state initiative to ease California’s minimum mandatory sentencing laws, though as a senator proposed a plan that would end minimum mandatory sentences.

Harris also stirred controversy in California when she didn’t back the 2015 bid to require all law enforcement officials to wear body cameras, though she had agents in her own department do so. She said local governments should decide if their employees should wear them.

Harris easily won a U.S. Senate seat in 2016, defeating Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez. She became an instant national figure, the first Indian-American in the Senate and the first Black woman to represent California as a senator.

She became a Democratic hero of sorts–and a big Republican target–when she sparred with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2017. Harris also became a leader in the bid to reform the nation’s criminal justice system, leading efforts to effect change after George Floyd died in Minneapolis in May 2020 while in police custody.

As vice president, Harris was tapped by Biden to lead an effort to help Central American countries where people were leaving for the U.S. But as undocumented immigrants continued to surge across the U.S.-Mexico border,Republicans blasted away at her, saying she was inept handling the crisis.

But many Senate Republicans supported tough bipartisan border security legislation earlier this year. The bill, which went nowhere after opposition from Trump and his supporters, was aimed at making it more difficult to cross the border and make it more difficult for migrants to seek asylum. Biden backed the bill.

Harris briefly ran for the 2020 presidential nomination, but her effort went nowhere. She was criticized for having murky positions on some issues, notably health care reform.

Vice presidential struggles

Rarely in modern times does a vice president who wants to move up get denied their party’s nomination. They’re often challenged within their own party–Walter Mondale in 1984, George H. W. Bush in 1988, Dan Quayle and Al Gore in 2000, Biden in 2020–but almost always prevail.

Economist/YouGov national polls show that during the Biden administration, 42% have had a favorable opinion of Harris, less than Biden’s 46%.

But that four point gap is comparable to the favorability ratings during President Barack Obama’s administration, when Biden was vice president. Obama’s favorability averaged 50% to Biden’s 46%.

During the Trump administration, Vice President Mike Pence averaged 39% favorability to Trump’s 41%.

There’s evidence that Democrats are ready to rally around Harris.

The KHive, a social media group of Harris backers, has been more active lately. And new Yahoo! News/YouGov poll showed that while Harris’ unfavorable ratings remain high, she’s gaining support from Democrats.

“Harris’ number has steadily improved,” since bottoming out in August 2022, said Carl Bialik, U.S. political editor at YouGov.

In last week’s poll, 31% of registered Democratic voters said they’d prefer Harris over California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was mentioned by 17%.

The CNN-SRSS national poll, taken June 28-30 after the debate, showed Harris trailing Trump, 47% to 45%. That was the smallest gap between Trump and any Democrat. Newsom was behind 48% to 43%.

Republican criticism

Republicans are eager for a Harris run.

“She can try but there’s a lot of videotape out there. We live in an age where you can go on the internet and find anything she said in public,” said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy in Florida.

With Biden floundering, Republicans are trying to define Harris as an unhinged liberal who has deceived voters about the president’s fitness for office.

“Every one of them (Biden supporters) has lied about Joe Biden’s cognitive state and supported his disastrous policies over the past four years, especially Cackling Copilot Kamala Harris.,” the Trump campaign said this week in a statement.

“Everything Kamala Harris touches turns into an unmitigated disaster. Whether extreme House Democrats call on Joe Biden to step aside or not, Kamala Harris deserves the blame for many of the crises making life unsafe and difficult for American families — and we plan to make her a prominent feature of the 2024 campaign,” said Will Reinert, national press secretary at the National Republican Congressional Committee.

In a digital ad released this week, the committee shows her giving a long-winded answer and ends with the statement “is this who we want to be president?”

There’s no easy answer.

Harris has recently been active in reminding voters about the 2023 Supreme Court decision restricting abortion rights.

And she’s steadfastly, unequivocally defending Biden. She was on TV the night of the debate with a strong show of support, telling CNN that while “It was a slow start. That’s obvious to everyone,” people should remember,“I’m talking about the choice for November. I’m talking about one of the most important elections in our collective lifetime.”

At a rally in Las Vegas the next day, she got more personal.

“I see Joe Biden when the cameras are on and when the cameras are off,” Harris said. “I see him in the Situation Room keeping our country safe. On the world stage, meeting with world leaders who often ask for his advice.”

She won’t talk about her own status. Earlier this week, in San Francisco, a CBS reporter asked about her future.

“I’m proud to be Joe Biden’s running mate,” Harris said.