Kamala Harris — who clearly has her sights on the Oval Office — is suffering a dismal approval rating. A recent aggregation of polls shows that as of July 20, her “favorable” rating is a lousy 44.3 percent while her “unfavorable” rating is a whopping 46.3 percent. If she means to replace the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2024, she has an arduous uphill climb.
It is an obvious fact that the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is in a state of rapid cognitive decline. His barely intelligible ramblings, erratic behavior, and crazed facial expressions make that point in nearly every instance when he is shown speaking to anyone anywhere about anything. And even at that, polls aggregated by RealClear Politics show that Biden is polling higher than Harris. His “favorable” rating is 51.8 percent, while his “unfavorable” rating is 42.8 percent.
For more Americans to have a higher favorable and lower unfavorable opinion of a man whose mental faculties are breaking down by the day than of Harris is perhaps the most damning evidence that she is simply unlikable by too many Americans. In fact, the data from the polls find that 41 percent of males and 34 percent of females ranked their opinion of Harris as “very unfavorable.” Those aged 65 and up and white men without college degrees liked her the least. Her approval rating among those groups hovered somewhere around 50 percent.
Even among Democrats — who could be expected to view Harris in a more positive light (if only by association), Harris still could not hit the half-way point. Only 49 percent of that demographic found her “very favorable.” She — of course — fared worse among Republicans, with an overwhelming 87 percent clicking the “very unfavorable” box.
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Her low numbers likely stem from a variety of causes. To begin with — and with all effort at being charitable — Harris is just not a very likable person. Suffolk University Political Research Center Director David Paleologos told the Washington Examiner that since nearly 20 percent of Biden voters thought poorly of Harris or did not think of her at all, the implication is that “either some 2020 Biden voters thought there was a better pick or they’re not convinced that they like her.”
That is not very surprising. Her presidential campaign was similar to fireworks: A quick rise, an explosion, a fizzle, and then a crash that no one even seemed to care about. She came out strong — being the only black candidate in the top tier of the 2020 race. But her campaign was described by insiders as “chaotic” and it was soon obvious she could not hold it together. Her poll numbers dropped, the money stopped coming in, and In December 2019, Harris announced that she was dropping out of the race.
But that was then; what about now? Post-election, Harris has made several key missteps. And her caustic personality has come to light now that she is more in the public eye. If people did not like her when they knew little about her, what they know now does not seem to help.
One of her major political missteps was putting off her trip to the border and then laughing it off when called on the carpet about it. As many saw it, she had been tasked as Biden’s number two with handling the border crisis and she simply failed to take it seriously.
Ladling dishonesty upon dereliction, she falsely claimed that she had been busy lobbying lawmakers on important legislation.
As to her caustic personality, her own staff has described her as “abusive” and treating people “like sh*t,” according to a late June report by left-leaning Politico. That report cites “22 current and former vice presidential aides, administration officials and associates of Harris and Biden” as describing the office atmosphere as “tense and at times dour.” One person, quoted in anonymously in the article, said, “People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,” adding, “It’s not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like sh*t.”
And while Harris supporters defend her by playing the “black woman” card — claiming that a white man who ran his office in a tough and demanding way would be seen as a strong leader — the Politico article states, “But for some of the people who know Harris best, it’s become an all-too-familiar pattern for a politician who has churned through several iterations of staff on her rise and took office with a team almost entirely new to her.”
So, post-election, with these (and other) reports having revealed her “leadership,” character, and personality, the aggregated polls show that most American voters simply do not like the woman-who-would-be-president. And that creates a real dilemma for the Democrat Party: How can they hope to reform her in time for the 2024 race? Or if they plan — as many have speculated — to invoke the 25th amendment and remove the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue due to his increasingly apparent dementia and replace him with Harris, how long can they hold out on doing so?
But regardless of whether that was the plan all along, it is likely only a matter of time before it becomes a necessity. Biden is falling apart rapidly. Watching a video of him speaking just two weeks ago compared to a video from the past few days is a good barometer of his cognitive decline. His slurred, garbled, incoherent babblings are impossible to hide — even if liberal media ignore them.
This reality puts a clock on removing Biden from the White House and seating Harris behind the Resolute desk. But given her decided unpopularity (a mark of which is that an elderly white man with undeniable signs of dementia is polling higher than is she), it would seem that Democrats would want to hold out as long as possible before making that change. In the current scheme of things, Biden is the face of the administration and is more likable than Harris. Whether he is removed by invocation of the 25th amendment in the midst of his first term or — by some mystery — is able to be propped up long enough to make it to 2024, any oddities or policy failures during his presidency can later be blamed on his age and mental condition.
On the other hand, the moment Harris assumes office, the buck stops with her. And she will not be able to simply laugh off her lack of leadership with any amount of annoying cackle.
Whatever happens between now and 2024, Harris will have a tough battle to win the presidency then. That is especially true if Republican are successful in passing real voter integrity laws in states across the country. And likely even more so if President Trump runs again. After all, after four years of living in an insane asylum while the patients run the place, Americans will almost certainly prefer a president who promises to put America first and restore sanity.
