New poll reveals what Democrats think of Harris as president

With President Biden's future uncertain, most Democrats say the country would be in good hands if his vice president took over the White House.

A new AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that about 6 in 10 Democrats believe Vice President Kamala Harris would do a good job as president. About 2 in 10 Democrats don't think she would and another 2 in 10 say they don't know enough to say.

The poll comes as a growing number of Democratic officials are publicly urging Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election after his disastrous performance in the June 27 debate. Democratic officials are concerned that voters do not believe the 81-year-old president is capable of carrying out his duties, and many have suggested that Harris or another candidate would fare better against the Republican nominee, former President Trump.

Recent polls show that Democratic voters have also become disillusioned 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 AP-NORC national poll also found that 65% of Democrats say Biden should drop out of the race.

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While Harris is the focus of several internal discussions about a Plan B candidacy, the vice president has maintained strong public support for Biden and defended him from criticism launched by panicked party officials who spoke anonymously to the press.

But if Harris, 59, were to replace Biden at the top of 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. (Fake Images)

Harris could also motivate key sectors of the Democratic electorate to turn out on Election Day, including women and Black adults, who were more likely than Americans overall to say Harris would do a good job as president.

Americans outside the Democratic Party were more skeptical of Harris's performance 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 about her to have an opinion.

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to speak during the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., Thursday, July 18, 2024. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Harris’s popularity rating is similar to Biden’s, but the share of Americans who have an unfavorable view of her is somewhat smaller. The poll found that about 4 in 10 American 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 1 in 10 Americans say they don’t know enough to have an opinion of Harris, while nearly all have an opinion of Biden.

About three-quarters of Democrats have a positive view of Harris, which is in line with their view of Biden. Seven in ten have a favorable view of him.

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Harris is also better known among Democrats than other potential candidates, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. About a third of Democrats say Newsom would make a good president, and half don’t know enough to say so. About a quarter of Democrats say Whitmer would do well, and about two-thirds don’t know enough to say so.

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.

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