Fact check: Is Kamala Harris the most unpopular vice president ever?

Republicans like to claim Vice President Kamala Harris is the most unpopular VP ever.

Because Quinnipiac, Marist and other polls were not available at the founding of the Republic, we’ll never know for sure.

What we do know is that Harris is viewed far more unfavorably than favorably in poll after poll. Her numbers are lower than her four immediate predecessors at this point in their terms, though Dan Quayle’s unfavorables were worse. So were Dick Cheney’s in his second term.

Harris’ latest favorable rating in the July 1-5 Economist/YouGov poll was 39% of registered voters, while 55% viewed her unfavorable, a 16 percentage point difference.

Cheney had a bigger gap in his second term. President George W. Bush’s vice president had favorables that kept sinking as the Iraq War became more unpopular. Regarded as an architect of the 2003 invasion, Cheney was seen favorably by just 30% of adults in July 2007. More than twice that many had an unfavorable view, according to the Gallup Poll.

In July 2015, his seventh year as vice president, Joe Biden’s approval rating was 49%, with 39% disapproval, a Quinnipiac University poll found. Biden avoided serious controversy during his two terms, gaining a reputation as a behind-the-scenes Washington player adept at negotiating deals with Republicans.

Al Gore was especially popular in his seventh year as Bill Clinton’s vice president in 1999. A CNN/USAToday/Gallup poll found 59% had a positive opinion of Gore, 25% did not.

Quayle, President George H.W. Bush’s vice president, had unfavorables as high as 59% in the Gallup Poll in the summer of 1992, as he and Bush sought a second term.

Vice presidents and polls

Comparing polls involves a lot of variables. Two forces drive many lof these numbers.

One is kind of obvious: as the president goes, so goes the vice president. Bush’s popularity was falling in the summer of 1992. So were his son’s approval ratings in 2007. Clinton’s were way up in 1999.

Vice presidents can’t escape their boss’ shadow, as they spend their time touting the administration’s achievements.

“As the vice president, she owns this administration’s agenda and failures on any issue,” said Kamy Akhavan, executive director of the University of Southern California Dornsife Center for the Political Future.

A vice president is often not in a position to fight back when the opposition starts firing away, as Republicans are doing with Harris.

“She’s taking the high road, but the low road is where you start scoring points,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in New York.

The other, more recent trend, is that voters judge the vice president almost solely as a political figure.

They often don’t know or see them much, so Democrats tend to rally around Democrats and Republicans around Republicans.

Pence’s favorable ratings remained between roughly 42% and 45% throughout his four years as vice president, while his unfavorable number hovered around 50%, according to a YouGov poll.