Have you ever heard of Kamala Harris? And if so, can you envision her as the next president of the United States? My answer to the first question is (obviously): Yes. My answer to the second: Not at this time.
Many Americans already had serious doubts about Vice President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race over the weekend. I strongly suspect that if they vote for him in November’s presidential election, they will do so for one reason only: because his name is not Donald Trump.
The unpopular Mrs. Harris
But let's see exactly what's wrong with Kamala Harris. On the one hand, she's unpopular. She actually wanted to be the Democratic presidential nominee in the 2020 presidential election, but already in December 2019 He was eliminated from the competition..
According to the official explanation, he withdrew due to “lack of financial resources” – in fact because he could not secure sufficient support. August 2019 National Opinion Poll according to While Biden, the later Democratic presidential nominee and then-president, received the support of 29 percent of those surveyed, he received only 7.4 percent support, not even reaching the podium.
Photo: EPA/Ting Shen
Observers describe his campaign as chaotic. Without a strategyHis statements were sometimes described as controversial and disastrous. Because of his lack of popularity, donors became less willing to support him, and then, when it became clear that he had no chance, they dropped him.
Based on all this, there is a suspicion that Joe Biden nominated him for the vice presidency primarily because of his origin, but not because of his merits.
Kamala Harris is a woman of color, of Jamaican descent on her father’s side and Indian descent on her mother’s side — meaning she could appeal to African-American and Asian-American voters, especially at a time when the country has been shaken by the killing of George Floyd. (A man of color was killed by a white man who was identified by a police officer.)
invisible vice president
Harris, who was California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017, has been referred to as “the top hound,” and his work has received mixed reviews. Isabel Schnabel, member of the European Central Bank’s supervisory board He described it as completely invisible. He said to him: “He will never win the election, it's hopeless.” (His comment was leaked thanks to the microphone he left behind.)
His critics also accuse him of expressing himself in clichés (an accusation often leveled against him), reading his speeches aloud, lacking spontaneity, and being unable to communicate with the audience.
“Trivial,” for example, is how one participant described his speech at last year’s British conference on artificial intelligence to Politico, yet according to other diplomats, he actually sounded “more engaged” and “more engaging” in informal meetings.
However, she has not been able to infiltrate the hearts of Americans even as vice president, despite being the first woman to hold the position of vice president in the history of the United States. Approval Index November 2021 It reached only 28 percent. According to a USA Today poll, it is one of the lowest values among contemporary vice presidents.
Overall, he has proven to be one of the least likeable vice presidents when it comes to his job — even if the lackluster performance of his boss, Joe Biden, played a significant role in that.
Initially, it was tasked with two main tasks (dealing with the causes of illegal immigration, and electoral reform), and it has not succeeded in either of them. Although it does relatively well on some issues (health, gender equality, gay rights) according to public opinion polls, dealing with foreign policy or immigration issues has already become difficult. They won't trust him. voters
His opinion has not improved significantly yet: according to the majority of recent polls conducted in July, more people rate his work as vice president negatively than positively.
It's not Donald Trump
So the question is: How can Kamala Harris defeat Donald Trump, who has a broad and stable popular base, and who, moreover, has managed to win the sympathy of some undecided people with the failed assassination attempt against him?
In other words, what can you trust? For one thing, he’s not Donald Trump. In other words, every voter who’s shaken by the idea of another Trump presidency will, for lack of a better word, vote for him.
The size of this mass should not be underestimated. A recent survey according to 47% of voters will vote for Trump and 45% for Harris.
On the other hand, you can also count on the fact that a number of famous Democrats and the Democratic Party are behind her. Among the few exceptions is former US President Barack Obama, whose wife Michelle Obama has also been mentioned as a possible candidate. AP poll according to Harris already has enough delegates to officially run for president, and almost all of her potential rivals have dropped out of the race. Third, you can count on the support of those who want to see a woman and/or a person of color at the helm of the country.
A formal decision will be made during the period from August 19 to 22 at the Democratic Party General Assembly.
In short: Harris has not yet demonstrated the qualities (unlike Barack Obama last year, for example) that would qualify her to become president of the United States (and at the same time the first female president in the country’s history). But he still has four months to refute that.
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