He has worried Republican donors, his name has become recognizable, and prominent Democratic leaders have lined up behind him.
Top Democrats say if President Joe Biden bows to growing pressure and steps down as the Democratic nominee in the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris would be his natural successor.
Now party donors, activists and officials are asking: Do they have a better chance than Biden to defeat Donald Trump? Biden is in the race, he has said repeatedly.
Harris, 59, a former US senator and California attorney general, would have been the first woman to become US president if she had been the party’s nominee and won the November 5 election. She is also the first African American and Asian person to serve as vice president.
His three-and-a-half years in the White House were characterized by a tepid start, staffing changes, and initial policy assignments, including immigration from Central America, that produced no major successes.
By last year, many in the White House and the Biden campaign privately worried that Harris had become a liability to the campaign. But that has changed significantly since then, as she has moved forward on abortion rights and courted young voters, Democratic officials said.
Some surveys favor Harris
Recent polls suggest Harris may perform better than Biden against Republican candidate Trump, though she will face a tough fight.
A CNN poll released on July 2 found that voters favored Trump over Biden by six percentage points, 49% to 43%. Harris also trailed Trump, 47% to 45%, which was within the margin of error.
It also found that independent voters like Harris more than Trump, 43%-40%, and moderate voters in both parties like her more, 51%-39%.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll following last week’s televised debate between Trump and a faltering Biden found Harris and Trump were roughly tied, with 42% backing her and 43% supporting him.
Only former first lady Michelle Obama, who has never expressed any interest in joining the race, ranked higher among Biden’s potential alternatives.
Internal polling shared by the Biden campaign after the debate shows Harris is about as likely as Biden to defeat Trump, with 45% of voters saying they would vote for her, while 48% said the same for Trump.
Influential Democrats including U.S. Representative Jim Clyburn, who played a key role in Biden’s 2020 victory; Representative Gregory Meeks, a New York congressman and senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus; and Summer Lee, a House Democrat from Pennsylvania, have indicated that Harris would be the best choice to lead the ticket if Biden decides to step down.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has privately indicated the same thing to lawmakers, a congressional aide said.
Harris is taken so seriously that two Republican donors told Reuters they would like Trump to field Harris against Biden.
Pauline Lee, who raised funds for Trump in Nevada after the June 27 debate, said “I want Biden to stay in his position” rather than be replaced by Harris, adding that she thought Biden had proven himself “incompetent”.
And some on Wall Street, a key Democratic fundraising hub, are beginning to signal their preference.
“Biden is already behind Trump and it is unlikely he will be able to bridge the gap given the current state of his campaign. Vice President Harris’ presence increases the Democrats’ chances of taking the White House,” Sonu Varghese, global macro strategist at financial services firm Carson Group, said after the debate. “At this point, her chances of winning are much higher than Biden’s.”
Most Americans view Harris negatively, as they view both men running for president negatively.
Polling outlet Five Thirty Eight said 37.1% of voters like Harris and 49.6% dislike her. Those numbers compare to 36.9% and 57.1% for Biden, and 38.6% and 53.6% for Trump.
Women, Black Voters, Gaza
Since the Supreme Court struck down a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion in 2022, Harris has become the Biden administration’s leading voice on reproductive rights, an issue Democrats are betting on to help them win the 2024 election.
Some Democrats believe Harris could energize Democratic-leaning groups whose enthusiasm for Biden has faded, including Black voters, young voters and those who do not approve of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
“She will energize the Black, brown, and Asian Pacific members of our coalition…She will instantly draw our nation’s disillusioned young people back into the fold,” former Ohio Democratic congressman Tim Ryan said in a recent article.
Democratic and Republican suburban women also may be more comfortable with him than with Trump or Biden, she said.
As vice president, Harris’s public Israel strategy is similar to Biden’s, though she was the first senior US government leader to call for a ceasefire in March.
“Simply changing the candidate does not address the movement’s central concern,” said Abbas Alavieh, a member of the national “Uncommitted” movement, which withheld votes for Biden in the primary based on his support for Israel.
If Biden steps down, there could be competition among other Democrats to become the nominee.
If the party chooses another candidate to replace Harris, some Democrats say it could lose the support of many Black voters who were crucial to Biden’s electoral victory in 2020.
“There’s no choice but Kamala Harris,” said Adrienne Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC, a Black voter outreach group.
“If the Democratic Party thinks they have a problem now with their base being confused … let alone a Black woman, vice president, I don’t think the Democratic Party is really going to recover from this.”
Too left-wing?
However, some Democratic donors said Harris might struggle to win over moderate Democrats and independent voters who prefer Biden’s centrist policies. Both parties are looking for independents to help them get over the finish line in presidential elections.
“His biggest weakness is that his public brand is associated with the far left wing of the Democratic Party … and the left wing of the Democratic Party cannot win national elections,” said Dmitry Mehlhorn, a LinkedIn co-founder and an adviser and fund-raiser for Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman. “That’s the challenge he’ll have to overcome if he becomes the candidate.”
Harris will take over the funds raised by the Biden campaign and inherit the campaign’s infrastructure, a significant advantage just four months before election day on November 5.
But strategists say any Democratic campaign needs to raise hundreds of millions of dollars more before November to succeed. And there, Harris could become a liability.
“I can tell you we’re having a lot of difficulty raising money for him,” a Democratic National Committee source said.
As a presidential candidate ahead of the 2020 election, Harris lagged behind Biden in fundraising. She dropped out of the race in December 2019, the same month her campaign reported $39.3 million in total contributions. Biden’s campaign reported $60.9 million in the same period.
However, after naming Harris as his vice-presidential candidate in 2020, Biden’s campaign raised a record $48 million in 24 hours.
Some Democrats say Harris’s prosecutorial background could shine in a direct debate against Trump.
“She is incredibly focused, forceful and intelligent, and if she brought a criminal prosecution against Donald Trump, she would tear him to pieces,” Mehlhorn said.
Republican attacks on Harris are mounting as she is being touted as a potential replacement for Biden. Conservative leaders are recirculating criticism leveled at her during the 2020 race, including from some Democrats, that Harris laughs too much, that she has not been tested, and that she is unqualified.
Kelly Ditmar, a political science professor at Rutgers University, said the attacks are part of a long history of objectifying and demeaning Black women in politics.
“Unfortunately, the reliance on racist and sexist attacks and disinformation against women running for office has been historically common and persists today,” Dittmar said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
