Democrats are beginning to worry that Vice President Kamala Harris could hurt their chances to retain power in the 2022 midterm elections.
This was entirely foreseeable. Harris was so unpopular in her party that she dropped out of the 2020 Democratic primary before anyone voted.
The Hill reports:
Harris’s bad polls trigger Democratic worriesVice President Harris has some ground to make up in order to be perceived more favorably by the public, a complicating factor for the Biden administration as it maps out its midterm strategy.Six months into office, polls indicate Harris is viewed less favorably than President Biden. She has also made some tactical missteps outside of the White House that Democrats say show she hasn’t quite yet found her bearings.Vice presidents historically do not outperform the leader at the top of the ticket. But her lower ratings haven’t gone unnoticed…“As of right now, I think she has the potential of doing more harm than good for some of these candidates,” said one Democratic strategist. “My sense is she’ll probably raise a lot of money and maybe she’ll go to some specific districts, but they’ll have to be really strategic with her.”“She doesn’t have the standing at this moment to go to a lot of these tighter districts,” the strategist added.
Anders Hagstrom of the Daily Caller highlights a quote from a political analyst who says this puts Democrats in a no-win position. If they use Harris to campaign for the midterms, she could do damage. If they don’t, it confirms that she is politically toxic:
“No one is coming out and saying she’s doing an amazing job, because the first question would be ‘On what?’” another person, identified as a “Harris ally” told the Hill. “She’s made a bunch of mistakes and she’s made herself a story for good and bad.”However, some disagree, arguing that Democrats would be making a mistake to shy away from Harris ahead of the midterms.“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 told the Hill.“If Democrats buy into the old-school political book and make the same mistakes that they’ve made in the past and try to shelf her, hide her, run away from her, all they’re doing is reasserting the right’s negative frame against her,” she said.
This is a short-term problem. The bigger, long-term problem for Democrats is figuring out what they’re going to do with Harris if Joe Biden can’t or won’t run in 2024.
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