After serving in the Senate for four years, and a failed run at the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2020, Senator Harris was tapped by former Vice President Joe Biden to be his running mate, in large part to help him unite the Democrat party, elevate a minority woman on a presidential ticket, and help Biden work with Congress and navigate Washington at large should he win the presidency.
While history has relegated the vice presidency to a mundane, pompous, and largely empty role, today, it has a different meaning. The modern vice presidency’s role is to help the President tackle tough issues he and the country faces, work with Congress, and serve as an outspoken and passionate public messenger of the President’s agenda and accomplishments.
Shortly after inauguration day, Vice President Harris had a 54% favorable to 38% unfavorable (+16) rating, according to a POLITICO-Morning Consult Poll (1/22/21-1/26/21), giving them strong momentum to push ahead with their wild spending proposals and radical socialist agenda. Fast forward one year later, and VP Harris finds herself at 40% favorable/51% unfavorable (-11), a massive 27 point swing. While Democrat readers of this article might say that this is just one poll, we are being fair here because the current favorable/unfavorable rating average of recent polls by Real Clear Politics as of this writing shows VP Harris with an even worse 38% fav/52% unfav (-14).
An interesting point revealed in the latest poll is that President Biden, who is more well known than VP Harris, has a better rating (-7) than Harris. The spotlight is naturally more on the President than the VP, so logically more people know him (plus he’s been in public office for nearly 50 years), and he should also be taking more of the blame for the administration’s failed policies and out of control inflationary spending. This comparison shows us that, while less people know Kamala Harris, those that do find her more unfavorable than favorable, and by a wider margin.
Why is Kamala Harris so unpopular? There are several reasons that come to mind, but one stands out as a driving factor of her unpopularity.
The best word that can best describe VP Harris is ‘absent.’ Right out of the gate, she was absent from the public eye, reportedly already fighting with much of her staff, and doing little to advance the president’s agenda. The Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act: absent. Build Back Better plan: nowhere to be found. Election and voting rights reform: besides lying to the press about what the bill actually does, absent. COVID relief packages 1, 2, 3: absent, absent, and absent.
Perhaps her most visible role came when President Biden makes her as “border czar,” and like his legislative efforts, she was absent on the border until practically forced to go to save face. When President Biden gave her an important job to do and get down to the U.S. southern border with Mexico and help stem the waves of immigrants flooding into the U.S. in the first six months of the Biden Administration, she made a last-ditch effort to travel to Guatemala. When Harris was interviewed by Democrat-friendly NBC News anchor Lester Holt in June of 2021, she said, “We are going to the border. We’ve been to the border. This whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border.” Holt replied, “But, you, haven’t been to the border,” and Harris paused and then awkwardly replied, “and I haven’t been to Europe.”
Vice President Harris’s approval ratings are abysmal, and she is even more unpopular than President Biden. Harris is doing a superb good job of making the office of the vice presidency irrelevant again.
Bob Carlstrom is President of AMAC Action