Like sinking ships throw objects overboard to survive, President Joe Biden must jettison Vice President Kamala Harris, according to the opinion of a staunch liberal.
Calling Harris “the most unpopular vice president in 30 years,” liberal Newsweek editor at large Tom Rogers called for her to be taken off the 2024 ticket in a recent Op-Ed for Newsweek.
Instead, he said Harris — a former attorney general of California — should be shifted back to the post of attorney general, replacing current Attorney General Merrick Garland, who Rogers said has a “cautious approach to the job.”
Rogers did not offer a possible replacement for Harris and noted that because Biden has already announced she is his 2024 running mate, it might be too late for his writings to have any impact.
Rogers noted that “disastrous” polls show Biden is in trouble.
“Biden’s underwater polling reflects the perception among many that Biden is simply too old, even for hard core Biden supporters. The President will be in his mid-80s throughout his second term. The perception that he will not be mentally fit enough to carry out the demands of the job may be unfair, but that perception is clearly held by a majority of voters, including Democrats and Independents,” Rogers wrote.
“The Democrats shouldn’t replace President Biden; they should replace Vice President Kamala Harris, who is even more unpopular, and who would replace President Biden in the event of an unfortunate circumstance related to his age and capabilities,” he wrote.
In light of that, he said pragmatism must rule. Rogers argued that the 2024 election could come down to two to three percent of swing voters in critical swing states.
“The most important question — perhaps the only question — of this election is whether swing voters in purple states who are highly resistant to Trump or DeSantis would feel forced to vote for them if Kamala Harris was the Vice President on the Biden ticket,” he wrote.
“If you think the answer to that question is that they might, or that enough of them might, that means that Vice President Harris could render Joe Biden unelectable. Which is why it is Harris who should be replaced,” he wrote.
Thomas Gift, associate professor of Political Science at University College London, said Harris poses a danger that could vary depending on Biden’s opponent.
“There’s no doubt Harris is a drag on the ticket, but the extent to which she’ll pull down Biden will largely depend on who the Republican nominee is,” he said, according to Newsweek.
“If it’s Trump, then her impact will be near zero because the difference in the presidential choices will be so stark,” he said. “If it’s another GOP nominee, then the prospect of Harris in the White House may be enough to swing a few voters over to the opposing side.”
However, he said Harris cannot be thrown overboard without sinking the Biden campaign.
“Biden can’t afford to dispense with Harris for all the obvious reasons — identity politics, and the prospect of alienating a small fraction of the progressive base being chief among them,” Gift said
“But anyone in the White House who’s being intellectually honest would tell you that Biden knows Harris offers very little by way of help in his re-election bid,” he said.
The NBC poll to which Rogers referred showed that 49 percent of those surveyed have a negative view of Harris, with 39 percent holding a “very negative” view while 32 percent have a positive view. The poll of 1,000 registered voters has a margin of 3.1 percentage points.
NBC noted that Harris, by having her negatives outweigh her positives by 17 percentage points, has set a new low for vice presidents in the NBC poll.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
