Vice President Kamala Harris is being viewed by many megadonors who are through with Biden as the heir apparent. They want her to replace the president, who suffered what they consider was a disqualifying debate performance on June 27. Not many would disagree with that sentiment—Biden was atrocious. Yet, a new poll put the vice president in a head-to-head matchup with Donald Trump, and the results weren’t pretty.
It was an outright evisceration in a poll conducted by the Daily Mail. It’s certainly not one Democrats want to read amid their ongoing heartburn over what to do with Joe Biden, who refuses to exit the race (via Newsweek):
Donald Trump would easily beat Vice President Kamala Harris in a presidential election, according to a new poll.
A DailyMail.com survey of 1,000 likely voters found that Trump would defeat Harris by 11 percentage points in a head-to-head race (49 percent to 38).
The poll took place amid ongoing speculation that Harris could replace President Joe Biden as the Democratic Party's 2024's nominee following his poor performance in the CNN debate with Trump on June 27.
Biden and his team have dismissed suggestions that he could end his reelection bid—essentially the only way Harris could conceivably replace him as the 2024 nominee. Harris has also repeatedly stated she is backing Biden to recover from the debate performance and go on to beat Trump in November.
While this survey might be an outlier, cumulatively, no one else does significantly much better than Biden regarding facing Trump, which is probably why the president is hanging tight. It’s not like Kamala runs neck-and-neck with Trump or automatically turns the race into a toss-up. The former president still maintains the advantage.
The intrigue over Harris has led to Democratic governors backing Biden for two reasons, all self-interested. If she runs and wins, the 2028 nomination is blocked for many who have their eyes on the White House in the next election. If Biden exits but Harris loses narrowly to Trump, she also gains a lot of clout and momentum heading into the 2028 election. It’s all about sinking Harris’ paths to the White House for the Democratic governors who met with Biden last Wednesday. They have provided the president with some political muscle—for now—amid the siege warfare being waged to remove him.
The truth is that Democrats are likely stuck with Biden. What a shame.
