A question Vice President Kamala Harris keeps getting and refusing to answer with any specificity is how her administration would differ from President Joe Biden‘s.
It is a delicate question, given that Biden remains in the White House, but also one of the first things Harris should have thought about upon taking over the top of the Democratic ticket in July.
Harris’s chances of winning the presidency may hinge on whether the electorate views her as an incumbent or a change candidate. The latter would seem a tough sell, but her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, has already spent a term in the Oval Office.
After punting on this question on The View and Stephen Colbert’s late-night show, Harris took another stab at it on Fox News with Bret Baier.
“Let me be very clear: My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden‘s presidency,” she said.
However, even here, she emphasized her (younger) age and (lesser) experience, not any difference in policy.
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The problem is that age and Washington insiderism weren’t the only reasons Biden was unpopular and typically trailing Trump before the disastrous June 27 debate. Pluralities to majorities disagreed with the administration on some of the top matters in this campaign, including the economy, inflation, immigration, and the border. Many of these voters preferred Trump’s approach.
Harris gave a more revealing answer the next time she was asked.
“To be very candid with you, even including Mike Pence, vice presidents are not critical of their presidents,” Harris told NBC News late last week. “I think that really, in terms of the tradition of it and also just going forward, it does not make for a productive and important relationship.”
While this raises more questions about Harris’s influence in the Biden administration and what her vice presidency means for her qualifications for the top job, it strongly suggests that she is navigating a difficult situation.
Biden was pushed out of the race after winning nearly all the Democratic primaries because party leaders were convinced he would lose to Trump in November. There were also varying degrees of concern about his ability to serve until he turned 86 years old, which would have been his age at the conclusion of a second term. Delegates had yet to nominate him, which left them a window for replacing him, which they took.
however, Biden, who had been trying to become president since 1987, was surely unhappy about it. He has played the good soldier, dutifully endorsing Harris and campaigning for her on the rare occasions he is asked. He has said all the right things, at least in public.
Harris has largely responded kindly amid reports of tensions between her team and Biden’s. More forcefully distancing herself from Biden could open a public rift at a time when she has improved on his 2024 performance. When he dropped out, the president was trailing Trump by 3.1 points in the RealClearPolitics national polling average and was reportedly faring even worse in private polling. Harris clings to a 0.9-point lead but is running behind where he was at this point four years ago.
Biden’s performance in office has put Harris in this precarious position. However, she is the vice president, and Biden could have made life more difficult for Harris by endorsing an open process at the Democratic convention or even daring the delegates to dump him in Chicago. Either scenario would have been chaotic rather than conducive to Harris’s positive vibes.
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It is probably too much to say that Democrats have buyer’s remorse about moving on from Biden to Harris. Yet in the closing days of the campaign, it is possible that the race has reset to where it was before the June 27 debate: close, but with a slight Trump edge. The Rust Belt, where Harris may underperform Biden with union households, could once again pick the winner.
Harris’s dilemma is she may need to distance herself from Biden more forcefully than ever before to win. Her incumbency is her biggest weakness. The risk of Biden, a sitting president with nothing left to lose, going rogue or Pennsylvanians getting upset that “Scranton Joe” is being disrespected could make the vice president remain “not critical” of her boss.