With President Biden’s future uncertain, a majority of Democrats say the country would be in good hands if his vice president took over the White House.
A new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 Democrats believe Vice President Kamala Harris would do a good job as president herself. About 2 in 10 Democrats don’t believe she would, and another 2 in 10 say they don’t know enough to say.
The survey comes as an increasing number of Democratic officials are publicly urging Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election after his disastrous debate performance on June 27. Democratic officials are worried that voters don’t believe the 81-year-old president is capable of performing his duties, and many have suggested that Harris or another candidate would fare better against the Republican nominee, former President Trump.
Recent polls show Democratic voters have soured on Biden as well. 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 face off against Trump. The AP-NORC national survey likewise found that 65% of Democrats say Biden should drop out of the race.
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Vice President Harris speaks at a campaign rally on June 28, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
While Harris is the focus of several insider discussions for a plan B ticket, the vice president has maintained strong public support for Biden and defended him from slings and arrows thrown by panicked party officials speaking anonymously to the press.
But if Harris, 59, were to replace Biden atop the ticket, Democratic voters would mostly be happy with the younger candidate — a woman of color who could champion the party’s message on abortion rights and a former state attorney general who could prosecute the case against Trump, a convicted felon in New York.
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President Biden and Vice President Harris. (Getty Images)
Harris could also motivate key Democratic constituencies to show up on Election Day, including women and Black adults, who were more likely than Americans overall to say Harris would do well as president.
Americans outside the Democratic Party were more skeptical of how Harris would perform in the Oval Office. Only about 3 in 10 Americans say Harris would be a good president. Nearly half said Harris would not do a good job, and 2 in 10 say they don’t know enough to have an opinion.
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Former US President Donald Trump arrives to speak during the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, on Thursday, July 18, 2024. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Harris’ favorability rating is similar to Biden’s, but the share of Americans who have an unfavorable opinion of her is somewhat lower. The poll showed that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults have a favorable opinion of Harris, while about half have an unfavorable opinion. There are more Americans with a negative view of Biden: approximately 6 in 10. About 1 in 10 Americans say they don’t know enough to have an opinion of Harris, whereas nearly everyone has an opinion on Biden.
About three-quarters of Democrats have a positive view of Harris, which is in line with how Democrats view Biden. Seven in 10 have a favorable view of him.
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Harris is also better-known among Democrats than other potential candidates, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. About one-third of Democrats say Newsom would make a good president, and half don’t know enough to say. About one-quarter of Democrats say Whitmer would do well, and about two-thirds don’t know enough to say.
The AP poll of 1,253 adults was conducted July 11-15, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is 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.