Kamala Harris is busy campaigning this week as calls grow for her boss to be replaced as the Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential election.
All eyes are on the 59-year-old vice president, who is supporting Joe Biden (81) as he publicly declines.
She must also present herself as a viable alternative should the Democratic Party take the drastic step of unseating Joe.
Several Democratic lawmakers, concerned about their own November elections after the failed debate, want Biden out and hope Harris enters the race.
The dying president, meanwhile, will face a huge test of his own mental and physical fitness as he welcomes world leaders to Washington DC for the three-day NATO summit.
“I personally think Kamala Harris would be a much better, stronger candidate,” Defense Department Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Washington) told CNN in a statement urging Biden to withdraw from the race.
Her approval ratings since taking office have been dismal, sometimes lower than Biden’s. But a shocking poll released Tuesday morning shows she could narrowly beat Donald Trump in November.
Vice President Kamala Harris is campaigning in three states this week as her name is mentioned to replace President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket after his disastrous debate performance.
Democratic pollster Bendixen and Amandi Inc. found that the VP would beat Trump 42 percent to 41 percent.
Hillary Clinton, who has not even been considered as a candidate, would beat Donald by two percentage points.
According to the survey, 12 percent were undecided and three percent said they would support a third-party candidate.
Harris will make two campaign stops — one open press and one closed — in Las Vegas on Tuesday. On Wednesday, she will deliver the keynote address at a sorority event in Dallas, Texas. And she will round out the week with a stop in right-wing North Carolina.
Nevada and North Carolina are two of the seven crucial states needed for victory in this election cycle.
The Biden-Harris campaign claims the vice president is “proud to [Biden’s] “I am his running mate and I look forward to serving at his side for another four years.”
Before her failed 2020 primary election led to her being elected as the first female minority vice president, Harris served as a California state senator for less than one term, before stepping down to take a job at One Observatory Circle.
She served as Attorney General of California from January 2011 to 2017. She was sworn in as a senator.
Her three and a half years in the White House have been disappointing so far, marked by staff turnover and policy portfolios that were widely seen as failures.
For example, Biden has tasked Harris with addressing the crisis at the southern border by looking at the root causes of migration from Central America. But under this administration, the problem has only grown.
Voters still find Harris awkward and unlikable, with critics often taking to social media to ridicule her awkward laughs and chide her for speeches that make no sense.
At a post-debate campaign rally in Los Angeles, California, last month, Harris made a nonsensical statement about the “promise of America” when she said, “We know what can happen and what is possible when we are collectively able to see what can be taken away from what has been.”
She has used this phrase often and it has led to confusion and criticism from the right.
The questions only increase after Biden’s feeble attempts at damage control following his debate with Trump over the car crash two weeks ago.
Biden stumbled and mumbled during the June 27 debate with Donald Trump and was described as hard to understand, weak and “out of it.”
The cleanup included campaign visits to the swing states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and a series of botched interviews in which Biden did nothing to convince voters he was mentally fit for another term.
Harris and the rest of the campaign insist they are behind Biden’s reelection campaign and are in no hurry to get rid of him. And the president insists he will lead the party to victory again this year against Trump.
One of Biden’s post-debate media appearances led to the firing of a Philadelphia radio host after it was revealed that the president’s team had sent her prepared questions that she used during the interview.
Despite the scripted nature of the interview, Biden still messed up when he referred to himself as a black woman when he wanted to praise Harris’s appointment as his vice president.
His first post-debate television interview was a 22-minute chat with ABC News host George Stephanopoulos, which was described as “sad” and seen as a continuation of his poor debate performance.
Other names being mentioned to replace Biden if he steps down before the convention next month include California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a close friend of Harris, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
But Harris’ status as a favorite replacement runs counter to the warning her ex-lover gave her after her failed 2019 presidential campaign.
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, now 90, wrote an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle warning Harris that the vice presidency would be the nail in the coffin for future White House ambitions.
“Historically, the vice presidency has often proven to be a dead end,” he wrote, urging his ex not to accept the offer to become number two.
“The glory would be short-lived, and historically the vice presidency has often been a dead end,” Brown wrote. “For every George H.W. Bush who rose from the job to the presidency, there is an Al Gore who never made it.”
But Democrats are now forced to fall back on Harris as they try to replace Biden at the top of the 2024 constituency. And it appears Brown has it wrong.