The unsinkable Kamala Harris
Scarcely four weeks from the first presidential debate of 2024, Democrats dream of President Biden’s stepping aside for a more appealing candidate. But there is a hitch. For starters, a convention switcheroo is all but impossible unless the president agrees—and he and the rest of the Biden family show no sign they’re ready to go.
And even if someone did manage to persuade Mr. Biden stepping aside was the right thing to do, there’s a bigger problem. Her name is Kamala Harris, and identity politics gives her an effective veto over any plans to swap out candidates.
It’s an extraordinary power considering her political weakness. A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll released last week reported that she is now the favored replacement on the Democratic ticket if President Biden were to step down. But when it came to head-to-head match-ups with Donald Trump in seven swing states, the same poll reported Ms.
Harris trailing in all of them, by margins ranging from 3 points in Michigan to 10 in North Carolina. That’s not surprising in light of her performance these past four years. Whenever Ms.
Harris has been in the news, it’s typically been for her high staff turnover or the word salads she serves up regularly. The one significant portfolio Mr. Biden gave her was the border with Mexico.
She made one visit, and has since given it a wide berth. She rightly recognizes it’s a loser for the Biden administration. But for all her insistence that she’s dealing with the “root causes" driving the illegal crossings, the whole country understands that the problem has metastasized under her watch.
So if the party is to have a stronger ticket heading into November, it probably means dumping both Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris.
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