Kamala Harris is seen as the worst vice president in decades, according to an exclusive poll for DailyMail.com, as pressure mounts on Joe Biden to pick a new running mate for the 2024 election.
About 40 percent of respondents ranked her ahead of Republicans Mike Pence and Dick Cheney as the worst recent holders of the office.
When asked to choose a word to sum up the vice president, respondents chose “incompetent,” far ahead of complimentary words like “smart” and “strong.”
And if that wasn’t clear enough, nearly half of the thousand people surveyed said Biden should trade his running mate before 2024 — including 27 percent of Democrats and a quarter of Black respondents.
The poll of 1,000 likely voters was conducted by JL Partners and has a margin of error of 3.1 points.
JL Partner surveyed 1,000 likely voters from September 15 to 20. The results have a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points and show Kamala Harris as the least popular vice president in recent memory
James Johnson, co-founder of JL Partners, said voters’ views of Harris produced one of the most brutal word clouds of his career, with words like “incompetent,” “idiot” and “unqualified.”
The results reflect Harris’ torrid time as vice president and the reservations of some senior Democrats who fear Biden’s advanced age means many voters will question whether his 58-year-old vice president should take the helm during a second term to take over.
“In the eyes of voters, if anyone is more incompetent than President Biden, it’s his vice president,” said James Johnson, co-founder of the Republican polling firm JLP.
“Honestly, this is one of the most brutal word clouds we’ve ever run. From ‘incompetent’ to ‘worthless,’ the public has written off Kamala Harris and there seems little way for her to improve her standing with them.”
It’s not just Republicans who think that, he added.
“Feelings are the same among independents, and one in four Black voters want Biden to choose someone else as his running mate, as do the majority of 18-29 year olds.
“Joe Biden’s re-election platform is already under serious pressure due to concerns about his age. Kamala Harris pushes it to the breaking point.”
The results will make reading the Biden-Harris campaign more difficult.
When voters were asked for words to describe Harris, the most common among all likely voters were “incompetent” and “idiot.”
While Republican hatred may have skewed the results, even people who described themselves as “independents” offered little encouragement. Words like “stupid,” “just kidding,” “unqualified,” and even “robot” dominated terms of approval like “strong” and “cool.”
Independents
Nearly half of all likely voters believe Biden should choose a new running mate for 2024
And about 47 percent of likely voters surveyed said Biden should choose another running mate. That includes a quarter of black respondents and more than half of 18- to 29-year-olds, two groups that generally viewed her more favorably.
An internal campaign memo from August, shared with DailyMail.com, outlines why she is unlikely to be dumped.
It says she is popular among groups that will be crucial in 2024 – with an approval rating of +18 among non-white voters, a near-equal rating among women and a favorability rating of nine points, with voters making less than $50,000.
And it says she had taken the lead on key issues, including reproductive rights and voting rights.
Campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said Harris was a strong and effective messenger on the campaign trail, helping deliver victories in 2020 and last year’s midterms.
“Next year’s election will be a stark choice between President Biden and Vice President Harris, who want to grow the economy from the center and bottom up and protect women’s right to choose; lower childcare and prescription drug costs; and protect Social Security and Medicare – and the extreme, unpopular MAGA agenda,” he said.
“We will win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work that Vice President Harris is doing as she travels the country meeting young voters, not by worrying about the polls.”
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris appeared together in the White House Rose Garden on Friday to launch the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention
Harris’s tenure has been marked by low positive ratings, friction with the Biden team and frequent resets aimed at helping her find a place in the administration.
Her first major role was tackling the root causes of the immigration crisis at the Mexican border. While she has helped raise significant funding to support economic development in Central and South America, arrivals at the border have been rising again in recent weeks and the issue remains a problem.
More recently, she has embarked on a “Fight for our freedoms” college tour, aimed at boosting support among younger age groups for the Biden-Harris ticket.
Last week, she joined her boss at a joint news conference where Biden put her in charge of a new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
He renewed visibility after multiple rounds of surveys among senior Democrats about whether Biden and Harris should even run for office again.
Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, raised more questions than she answered during an appearance on CNN earlier this month.
When asked if Harris was the best choice as running mate, she said: “He (Biden) thinks so. And that’s what matters.’
Donald Trump has overtaken Joe Biden in our DailyMail.com/JL Partners 2024 national poll. He holds a one-point lead after overturning June’s two-point deficit
The 2024 election will be a repeat of the 2020 election, when Biden defeated Trump
The poll had more bad news for Biden. It turned out that Trump overtook him in a hypothetical contest in 2024.
It shows the frontrunner for the Republican nomination has come back from a two-point deficit in June, when the poll was last conducted, to take a one-point lead over his likely Democratic opponent.
His rise is being fueled by independent voters switching sides and gains among college graduates, who provide the bulk of support for Biden.
In June, Biden led Trump by 46 points to 44. Now Trump leads Biden by 45 points to 44.
The data shows that Trump now has a two-point lead among people who consider themselves “independent.” Last time, Biden led Trump among independents by 42 points to 38.