Ignatius says voters are wisely focusing on Harris because of Biden’s age, while noting that Harris is less popular than Biden, with a 39.5 percent approval rating. according to survey website FiveThirtyEight.
“Biden could encourage a more open vice presidential selection process that could produce a stronger running mate,” Ignatius writes.
Biden himself has committed to Harris as his 2024 running mate. said last year, “She will be my running mate, number 1. And number 2, I put her in charge. I think she is doing a good job.”
in a New York Magazine Intelligencer ColumnEric Levitz raises several options to replace Harris, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.).
“Surely, replacing Harris with another running mate is not a great option,” Levitz writes. “It’s just that the Democrats don’t have any good ones. It is risky to change the first black vice president for someone else. But it is also risky to saddle an 81-year-old candidate with an exceptionally unpopular running mate who, if all goes well, will be virtually guaranteed the party’s nomination in 2028.”
However, getting rid of Harris could generate a significant backlash among Black voters, a category of voters that Biden needs in 2024 and that helped him to a big victory in 2020. Harris’ role as vice president marked a major achievement in being the first woman to hold her position and the first person of Black or South Asian descent to do so.
But as journalist Josh Barro said writes in his newsletter “Very serious” “Harris’s role as a draw for black voters is more theoretical than demonstrated,” as she has never had a core political base among black voters “because she has never been elected in a jurisdiction with a large black population.”
Instead of Harris, Barro suggests Whitmer as Biden’s running mate.
“(Biden) has the opportunity to choose a running mate who is more attractive to voters than Kamala Harris, more credible as a next-generation leader of the Democratic Party than Kamala Harris, and more comforting to voters considering the possibility that “His running mate could become president than Kamala Harris,” Barro writes.