Kamala Harris is campaigning hard this week amid growing calls for her to replace her boss as the Democratic nominee on the 2024 presidential ticket.
All eyes are on the 59-year-old vice president, who remains steadfast in her support for Joe Biden, 81, amid his very public decline.
He also needs to present himself as a viable alternative if the Democratic Party makes the drastic decision to oust Joe.
Several Democratic lawmakers, worried about their own November races after the debate disaster, want Biden gone and hope to put Harris in the race.
Meanwhile, the languishing president will face his own massive test of mental and physical fitness when he hosts world leaders in Washington DC for the three-day NATO summit.
“I personally think Kamala Harris would be a much better and stronger candidate,” the top member of the military, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), told CNN as he issued a statement calling on Biden to drop out of the race.
His approval ratings since taking office have been dismal, sometimes lower than Biden’s. But a surprise poll released Tuesday morning shows he could narrowly beat Donald Trump in November.
Vice President Kamala Harris is on a three-state campaign tour this week as her name is being considered to replace President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket following her disastrous debate performance.
Democratic Pollster Bendixen and Amandi Inc found that the vice president would beat Trump 42 percent to 41 percent.
Hillary Clinton, who has not even been considered as a candidate, would lead Donald by two percentage points.
According to the poll, 12 percent were undecided and three said they would support a third-party candidate.
Harris will make two campaign stops — one open to the press and one behind closed doors — in Las Vegas on Tuesday. On Wednesday, she will deliver the opening speech at a sorority event in Dallas, Texas. And she will close the week with a stop in North Carolina, a right-leaning state.
Nevada and North Carolina are two of the seven swing states needed to secure victory in this election cycle.
The Biden-Harris campaign says the vice president “is proud to be (Biden’s) running mate and looks forward to serving at his side for four more years.”
Before her failed 2020 presidential primary bid led to her being elected as the first woman and minority vice president, Harris served less than one term as a U.S. senator from California before resigning to take up residence at One Observatory Circle.
She also served as California Attorney General from January 2011 until she resigned to be sworn in as a senator in 2017.
His three and a half years in the White House so far have been lackluster and confusing, with staff turnover and policy portfolios that were widely seen as failures.
For example, Biden tasked Harris with addressing the southern border crisis by looking at the root causes of migration from Central America, but the problem has only exploded under this administration.
Voters still think Harris is a weird and unpleasant person. Critics often take to social media to mock her awkward laugh and criticize her for speeches in which she doesn’t say anything that makes sense.
During a post-debate campaign reception in Los Angeles, California, last month, Harris made a no-nonsense statement about the “promise of America” when she said, “We know what can happen and what is possible when we collectively have the ability to see what can be alleviated from what has been.”
This is a phrase she has used often and has sparked confusion and criticism from those on the right.
The questions only mount after Biden conducted weak damage control efforts following his car crash debate with Trump two weeks ago.
Biden stumbled and mumbled during the debate with Donald Trump on June 27 and was described as hard to hear and appearing weak and “out of it.”
The cleanup included campaign stops in key states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, as well as a series of botched interviews in which Biden did nothing to better convince voters he is mentally fit for another term.
Harris and the rest of the campaign team insist they support Biden’s reelection effort and are in no rush to unseat him. And the president insists he will lead the party to victory against Trump again this year.
One of Biden’s post-debate media appearances led to the firing of a radio host in Philadelphia after it was revealed that the president’s team sent her prepared questions that she used during the interview.
Despite the scripted nature of the interview, Biden still managed to slip up when he made a mistake by calling himself a black woman when he wanted to praise his appointment of Harris as his vice president.
His first televised interview after the debate was a 22-minute interview with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos, which was described as “sad” and seen as a continuation of his poor performance in the debate.
Other names being floated to replace Biden should he withdraw before the convention next month include California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a close friend of Harris, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
But Harris’ status as a replacement for the front-runner contradicts a warning issued by her ex-lover after her failed bid for the presidential primary in 2019.
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, now 90, wrote an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle warning Harris that the vice presidency would be the ultimate bet for any future White House ambitions.
“Historically, the vice presidency has often been a dead end,” he wrote, urging his ex not to accept the offer to be second in command.
“The glory would be short-lived, and historically the vice presidency has often proved to be a dead end,” Brown wrote. “For every George H.W. Bush who rose from office to the presidency, there is an Al Gore who never got there.”
But now Democrats are turning to Harris out of necessity as they scramble to try to replace Biden atop the 2024 ticket, and it appears Brown may have misspoken.