Key Takeaways:
- US Vice President Kamala Harris plans to run for re-election
- President Joe Biden has also previously announced that he will sough a second term
- However, Kamala Harris's approval ratings are low, which has the Democratic party worried
YEREVAN (CoinChapter.com) — United States Vice President Kamala Harris has confirmed that she will run for re-election in a bid to win a second term in office. As expected, she will tag along on President Joe Biden’s ticket, who has also expressed plans to run again. However, many in the Democratic party are unhappy with her plans, especially considering that she will become the next US president should (God forbid) anything happens to old Joe.
Harris made history in 2021 by becoming the first female, Black, and South Asian American to become Vice President. However, just months after becoming second in command, her popularity began tanking. Her approval ratings dropped, with more registered voters having an unfavorable opinions about her than favorable ones.
According to a March 21, 2023 poll by the Monmouth University Polling Institute, only 36% of the 805 adults surveyed approved of Kamala Harris. A vast majority, 53%, disapprove of the job she has done so far.
President Joe Biden also received a similar response, albeit better than Harris. While only 41% of those polled said they are happy with his tenure, more than half (51%) claimed they are dissatisfied.
The survey also pointed out that President Biden’s rating had been slowly improving after hitting a low point last June (36% approve and 58% disapprove). However, that trajectory, as the survey found, seems to have hit a wall.
Kamala Harris is aware that her fellow Democrats don’t like her
The fact that many in the Democratic party do not want to see Kamala Harris get a second term is clear to her as well. Many in her office have occasionally complained that she has been snubbed and that she has not received the support she otherwise deserves.
The sentiments were amplified when Senator Elizabeth Warren appeared to show reservation in backing Harris’s second term in an interview with GBH’s Boston Public Radio. After that made news, she offered a clarification, saying that she fully supports the duo’s re-election and that she “never intended to imply otherwise”.
But Harris knows that many in her party do not want her on the ticket. Last month, she dismissed her opponents as “political chatter” when she announced again that she intends to run.
“Joe Biden… has said he intends to run for re-election as president and I intend to run with him as vice president of the United States. I think that it is very important to focus on the needs of the American people and not political chatter out of Washington, D.C,”
she said.
But more than a second gig as Vice President, many in her party fear that she may eventually get the President’s post. Backing Joe Biden is perhaps the only way to stop her from throwing her hat in for the top post. Despite her low polling, there aren’t many in the party that can challenge her should she want to run for president instead of Joe Biden.
Recommended: Joe Biden’s 25% Taxation on Rich May End Up Hurting Crypto Investors
Harris may still hope to become US President
What is better than becoming the Vice President of the United States? Well, that is a no-brainer. Given the choice, almost anyone would want to be president instead.
Kamala Harris is no exception. But rather than risk it by challenging Biden, she is going for the safer option.
Joe Biden is 80 years old. If he wins re-election, it will make him the first octogenarian in office. That comes with its challenges. If he can complete a second full term, he will end it at 86.
But should he fail to complete his term, by either becoming ill, unable to perform his duties, or dying in office (God forbid), then Harris stands to become President by law.
Gerald Ford, the 38th President of the United States, explained this scenario well in 1989. Answering a young girl’s question, he predicted that a woman US Vice President will become the first woman US President after the death of a sitting male President.
“Either the Republican or Democrat political party will nominate a man for president and a woman for vice president, and the woman and man will win…. And in that term of office of the president, the president will die, and the woman will become president under the law, “
he said.
This scenario would almost definitely have crossed Kamala Harris’s mind more than once. Chances of this happening are so high, that the Democratic party is fretting at the thought of seeing her in the Oval Office.
Time will tell if Harris will become the first woman US President. However, for the time being, both she and President Biden are gearing up for a tough campaign.
