Vice President Kamala Harris’ unpopularity is tracking high based on polling data, causing Democrats to worry.
Though it is typical for the vice president to have lower favorability than the president, Harris’ performance compared to President Joe Biden has a number of allies watching carefully.
“As of right now, I think she has the potential of doing more harm than good for some of these candidates,” a Democratic strategist told The Hill, referring to helping upcoming Democratic midterm hopefuls.
“She doesn’t have the standing at this moment to go to a lot of these tighter districts,” the strategist also said.
A recent RealClearPolitics report has Harris’ average favorability at a mere 45 percent — with respondents who view her unfavorably a point higher at 46 percent.
Included in the average is the Economist/YouGov poll conducted between July 24 and July 27, those who view Harris unfavorably came in at 48 percent.
Even a Harris ally spoke to the nature and reason for such polls.
“No one is coming out and saying she’s doing an amazing job, because the first question would be ‘On what?’” the unnamed source told The Hill. “She’s made a bunch of mistakes and she’s made herself a story for good and bad.”
Though Biden has handed two of the politically challenging policy areas to Harris to handle — the crisis at the southern border and voting rights — she has fumbled the ball on many occasions.
After being tapped for the immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, Harris waited over 90 days to even visit the border — though she neglected to visit the prime location where the crisis is at its worst in the Rio Grande Valley.
Despite her failure to swiftly handle the border plus her widely-criticized habit of laughing off serious questions, some have tried to brand the unpopularity as nothing more than attacks on Democrats.
“The reason that Harris is unpopular is that they haven’t been able to make headway against Joe Biden personally, so they really have switched their messaging strategy to focus on Harris and attack him indirectly,” political analyst Rachel Bitecofer said, justifying the negative polls.