With President Joe Biden’s future uncertain, most Democrats say the country will be well run with his vice president in the White House.
A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that about 6 in 10 Democrats believe Vice President Kamala Harris will serve well as president herself. About 2 in 10 Democrats don’t believe she would do it, and another 2 in 10 say they don’t know what to say.
The survey comes as a growing number of Democratic officials publicly urge Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race after his poor June 27 debate performance. People say Harris or other candidates would fare better against the Republican nominee, former President Trump.
Recent polls show Democratic voters are also unhappy with Biden. A Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll of Massachusetts residents found that 64% of likely Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters want someone other than Biden to take on Trump. The Associated Press-NORC national survey also found that 65% of Democrats believe Biden should drop out of the race.
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Vice President Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Las Vegas on June 28, 2024. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
While Harris has been the focus of several internal discussions about the Plan B vote, the vice president has maintained strong public support for Biden and shielded him from the arrows hurled anonymously at the media by panicked party officials.
But if Harris, 59, is to replace Biden as the nominee, Democratic voters will mostly be pleased with the younger candidate — a woman of color who can defend the party’s message on abortion rights and a The former state attorney general, could prosecute the case.
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President Biden and Vice President Harris. (Getty Images)
Harris could also galvanize key Democratic constituencies to show up on Election Day, including women and black adults who are more likely than Americans overall to think Harris will do well as president.
Americans outside Democrats are more skeptical of Harris’ performance in the Oval Office. Only about 3 in 10 Americans think Harris would be a good president. Nearly half said Harris wouldn’t do a good job, and 2 in 10 said they didn’t know enough to have an opinion.
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Feather Forum on Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Harris’ favorability rating is similar to Biden’s, but a slightly lower share of Americans have an unfavorable view of her. Polls show that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults have a favorable view of Harris, while about half have an unfavorable view. More Americans have a negative view of Biden: about 6 in 10.
About three-quarters of Democrats have a favorable view of Harris, which is consistent with Democrats’ view of Biden. Seven out of 10 people have a favorable opinion of him.
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Harris also has higher name recognition among Democrats than other potential candidates, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. About a third of Democrats said Newsom would make a good president, while half didn’t know what to say. About a quarter of Democrats said Whitmer would do a good job, while about two-thirds didn’t know what to say.
The Associated Press poll of 1,253 adults was conducted July 11-15, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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