If history is any judge, the slope between Harris and the presidency is steep – and would be even if Harris were not Harris. Assuming she does not become an incumbent as a result of Biden’s constitutional removal, resignation, or death, her road is tough. Why?
First, in our country’s history, only 15 of 49 vice presidents have ascended to the presidency, despite an epidemic of ambition. Of those, eight followed a president’s death, and one more – Gerald Ford – came after a first-ever resignation, by Richard Nixon.
Without the jumpstart of ascension by assassination, only six vice presidents won office by election; even with that jumpstart, only ten vice presidents got to the office by election. So, even with tailwinds, positive support from a grieving public, and good records, only one in five made it.
Two won in the “founding era,” John Adams – Washington’s vice president – and Thomas Jefferson, who was a reluctant candidate, and won on the 36th ballot, when the House was required to break a deadlock in the electoral college.
Van Buren, former Secretary of State during Andrew Jackson’s first term, was highly regarded as a diplomat domestically and internationally, problem solver, and peacemaker, which propelled him to the vice presidency in Jackson’s second term, and the presidency the next cycle.
So, that is three who ran on their own, with no ascension by assassination and won – in the nation’s “early era,” when fewer knew and saw vice presidents, and office-holding carried more weight than just about anything else.
More recently Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Theodore Roosevelt (TR), and Lyndon Johnson became president when the presidents they served under were assassinated or died in office, but then ran and won on their own, Coolidge and Truman narrowly.
TR was wildly popular, an independent-minded, anti-corruption, trust-busting, gun-slinging, horse-riding, populist figure, who easily won his own election, and later ran as a third-party candidate in 1912, beating the Republican.
Johnson, a former Senate Majority Leader and astute politician, won the election after JFK’s death, largely from a nation in shock, but did not try as an elected incumbent, dropping early in 1968.
The eighth was Richard Nixon, who had been popular Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president and secured the highest office only after an eight-year drought, finally beating the Democrat nominee for president who replaced Johnson, namely Hubert Humphrey.
The ninth was George H.W. Bush, for eight years Ronald Reagan’s vice president, who ran bathed in the glow of Reagan’s extraordinary leadership record, and as a former war hero, congressman, ambassador, CIA director, and popular moderate himself.
The tenth was Joe Biden, who seems to have skirted major scrutiny as a side benefit of COVID shutdowns, running largely from a basement, and only got a closer look – including mental fitness and strong indications of public corruption tied to China and Ukraine, after the inauguration.
His record has been, shall we say, less than luminous. It has in fact arguably been the worst in American history, rescuing Millard Filmore, Andrew Johnson, and Jimmy Carter from last place.
Biden’s foreign policy, national security, border, crime, drugs, and economic policies, not to mention prosecuting his opponent in a political charade, presiding over record overspending and debt, nearly record inflation, interest, and cultural deconstruction have been breathtaking.
Now comes Biden’s vice president, Kamilla Harris, a listless, inarticulate, seemingly unapologetic leftist, bankrupt of personal and professional integrity, no positive record, not popular in her own party, an anticipated nominee after a de facto coup within the Democrat Party, removing Biden.
Pull back the curtain and what do you see? The pretense of power by a poster child for failure. Harris is Toto outing the Wizard of Oz, yanking the curtain back on Biden’s unfitness, then declaring he, Toto, was running for Wizard himself – only Toto did not defend the fake Wizard, and was likable.
In short, history makes clear even good vice presidents seldom win. Add the deadweight of a failed record by Biden and the first female vice president, and what have you? Not much. Do we live in a world of mirrors and monstrous lies? Of course. But is Harris likely to win? History … disfavors her.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
