Democrats have a replacement ready if Joe Biden steps aside before the November election.
She has been tested. Her election would be historic and she would easily take over Biden’s mantle.
There’s one problem: Her name is Kamala Harris, and by every measure she is the most unpopular vice president in American history and one of the people least likely to defeat Donald Trump in a general election.
But Democrats might just keep it anyway.
Former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile explained the party’s challenge succinctly.
Democrats have a replacement ready if Joe Biden steps aside before the November election: Kamala Harris.
There’s one problem: She’s the most unpopular vice president in American history and one of the least likely to defeat Donald Trump in a general election.
“How the fuck are you going to put all these white people ahead of Kamala?” he said last week.
Harris’s liberal supporters are already lining up to back her as the next Democratic front-runner over more capable candidates such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer.
On Tuesday, former Ohio Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan called it “absolutely absurd” and “insulting” to deny Harris the chance to succeed Biden.
Hours later, South Carolina Rep. James E. Clyburn, at one point the second-ranking Democrat in the House, said he would also support Harris if Biden resigns.
This has left many Democratic donors, left-wing pundits and even party stalwarts feeling desperate.
Now, an exclusive new poll from DailyMail.com can back up these complaints with hard data.
According to a poll of 1,000 likely voters, conducted in the days after Biden’s disastrous performance in the CNN debate last Thursday, Harris would lose to Donald Trump by 11 percentage points in a hypothetical head-to-head election: 38 to 49 percent.
Biden, despite struggling for 90 minutes to form complete sentences on live television, trailed Trump by just five points in a head-to-head matchup: 42 to 47 percent.
Former first lady Michelle Obama also edged out Harris, falling five points behind Trump.
Every other name that has floated as a potential Biden replacement — Whitmer, Newsom, Transportation Secretary Peter Buttigieg — trails Trump by double digits.
But while they are certainly unsympathetic, those Democrats are not as well-known to the public as Harris and would therefore likely have an easier time revamping their image.
“Kamala Harris has a very well-known name, which means her brand is harder to shake up,” said pollster James Johnson, who conducted the Mail survey. “Unlike other candidates who are a blank slate for voters and can be more easily defined, Harris brings a lot of baggage with her.”
When Mail respondents were asked to sum up the vice president in one word, the most common response was “incompetent”.
In a show of support from Democrats, the second most common word was “competent” — hardly effusive praise — followed by “strong,” “stupid,” “corrupt,” “horrible” and “dumb.”
In public, Harris has earned a reputation for delivering heaping helpings of “word salad,” a phrase used to describe her confusing explanations of seemingly simple concepts.
During a visit to a children’s hospital in May, Harris said, “We all believe that when we talk about community children, they are community children.”
A comedian on the pro-Democratic “The Daily Show” satirized his distinctive style as “thinking nonsense.”
Early in the Biden administration, the president tasked Harris with addressing the growing illegal immigration crisis.
Three months later, when pressed by NBC News’ Lester Holt to explain why she had not even visited the southern border, Harris bizarrely insisted that had.
“We have been at the border,” he said.
“You haven’t been to the border,” Holt replied.
JL Partners asked 1,000 potential voters for their one-word summary of Kamala Harris
“And I haven’t been to Europe,” Harris replied with an awkward laugh. “I mean, I don’t understand what you mean.”
Over the next year, Harris avoided in-person interviews, with even Biden describing his vice president as a “work in progress.”
Whitney Tilson, a top Democratic fundraiser and former hedge fund manager, said this week that Harris is “among the least likely to beat Trump, based on my polling, a lot of feedback from friends and readers, and my own observations.”
In a painfully revealing moment inside the liberal enclave of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday, host Mika Brzezinski let out an audible sigh as her interviewee explained how Harris could become the Democratic standard-bearer.
“That was me. It was all me,” she admitted.
Meanwhile, Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf admitted that selling Harris to the American public as their next commander in chief would be difficult.
“He will have to prove he is credible as a world leader. That is very difficult,” Sheinkopf told the Mail.
Harris’s 2020 presidential primary campaign was an almost unmitigated disaster.
She dropped out before the first contest after failing to gain any support among the electorate, but not before confronting Biden on the debate stage about his record on racial issues.
She attacked him for his long-standing opposition to busing children from minority schools to majority-white schools.
“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to be integrated into her public schools and she was bused to school every day,” Harris said. “That little girl was me.”
Jill Biden reportedly erupted in anger over the affront during a phone call with supporters, saying: “You stand there and call him a racist for no reason? Go fuck yourself.”
Despite Jill’s outrage and Harris’s political ineptitude, Biden ended up choosing her as his vice president amid pressure from the party’s identity-obsessed progressive wing, which demanded he put a black woman on the Democratic ticket.
Biden further suggested that he would only serve one term and that Kamala would be the next to lead the party.
Harris and Biden in happier times, during a campaign event at Girard College in Philadelphia
“I consider myself a bridge (president), not anything else,” the then 78-year-old candidate told a crowd in Detroit in March 2020, after concerns about his age arose. “There’s a whole generation of leaders who looked behind me. They are the future of this country.”
No doubt those comments came back to haunt him.
“Biden can’t just say he’s stepping down now and not pass the torch to Kamala,” Republican strategist Scott Jennings told the Mail. “To do that would be to admit she was never qualified to do it.”
And that’s not the only obstacle for anti-Harris Democrats.
On a call with party donors on Sunday, Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez explained that only Harris would be eligible to spend the $91.2 million raised by the campaign.
Under Federal Election Commission rules, the money is not transferable to another candidate.
This means that if someone other than Harris becomes the nominee, the money raised must be returned to donors, who can then decide whether they want to back the new candidate.
Ironically, DailyMail.com journalist Charlie Spiering wrote in his book: ‘Amateur Hour: Kamala Harris in the White House’that Biden is only running for a second term, due to his lack of faith in his vice president to beat Donald Trump.
Now, you may not have a say in the matter.