Kamala Harris more of a match for Donald Trump than Joe Biden, polls say

The vice president has become a more competitive opponent to face Donald Trump after President Joe Biden’s debate disaster.

US Vice President Kamala Harris has become more of a match for Donald Trump than President Joe Biden, according to polls. Picture: Getty Images

Kamala Harris has become a more competitive opponent to face Donald Trump than President Joe Biden after his debate disaster, according to polling that has advanced the case for the vice president to take over.

Harris was placed two points behind Trump in a CNN poll – 45 per cent to his 47 per cent – while Biden remained six points adrift at 43 per cent to Trump’s 49 per cent, the position he has occupied since April in the network’s regular survey.

Harris, 59, has her own problems communicating with voters and has struggled with lower favourability ratings than Biden, but it is a sign of the desperation in Democratic ranks that she is now being talked up to replace him as the party’s candidate in November’s election.

Republicans were already warning that a vote for 81-year-old Biden would effectively be a vote for Harris, who, they argue, would inevitably have to replace the frail president within the next four years if he won re-election, and have now stepped up their attack adverts on her.

Described as Biden’s “border czar”, the advert focuses on her perceived failings to resolve the crisis on the border, along with a caption that asks: “Is this who we want to be president?”

Calls for Harris to be elevated were led by Tim Ryan, a former Democratic congressman for Ohio who lost his attempt to become a senator in 2022.

“Those who say that a Harris candidacy is a greater risk than the Joe Biden we saw the other night and will continue to see are not living in reality,” Ryan wrote in Newsweek.

He told CNN that the Biden administration was “the most successful administration in modern history” and that “she was in the room”.

Ryan added: “She was right there, three-and-a-half years, went through the campaign with him. I think she would be able to talk about that much clearer than the president would be able to. I think she would absolutely juice up the Democratic base.”

Harris has the advantage at this late stage of being well known and associated with leading the Democratic Party’s fightback against Republican restrictions on abortion. She has higher ratings than Biden among black voters, whom the party needs to turn out to stand any chance of retaining the White House. A coronation for Harris would have the advantage of avoiding a divided and chaotic convention in Chicago in August, when Democrats gather to anoint their candidate.

“The more people understand the physics of the nomination fight, the stronger her candidacy becomes,” Jamal Simmons, Harris’s former communications director, told Politico. “It’s delegates, it’s the racial and gender dynamics … and she also is the most vetted of the people right there. There are no more shoes to drop with her.”

Harris’s case was also put by Jim Clyburn, a veteran South Carolina congressman credited with saving Biden’s primary campaign in 2020, when Clyburn appealed to black voters in southern states to get behind him. “We should do everything we can to bolster her, whether it’s in second place or the top of the ticket,” Clyburn told MSNBC.

“I will support her if [Biden] were to step aside,” he added. “This party should not, in any way, do anything to work around Ms Harris.”

A new 90-second advert for the National Republican Congressional Committee reminds voters of Harris’s baggage. It calls her “Biden’s enabler-in-chief” and “architect of the border crisis”, reminding voters of the record numbers of asylum seekers arriving from Mexico after Harris took charge of stemming migration. The advert includes her telling NBC in 2022, shortly before the largest influx: “The border is secure.”

Harris has remained steadfastly loyal in her public appearances. “Look, Joe Biden is our nominee. We beat Trump once and we’re going to beat him again, period,” she told CBS on Tuesday. “I am proud to be Joe Biden’s running mate.”

The Times