Willie Brown, former San Francisco mayor and ex-boyfriend of now-Vice President Kamala Harris, said that Harris might be unlikeable, contracting “Hillary Syndrome,” according to an interview with Politico released Wednesday.
Brown expressed concern over Harris’ likeability to voters, invoking comparisons to former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and claiming it may be unfixable, according to Politico. Harris’ currently sits at a 51.2% disapproval rating, according to 538 polling averages.
Clinton struggled with her image during the 2016 election, hitting a 56% disapproval rating in August of that year, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll. Her use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State under the Obama Administration affected her image with voters, with 50% of Americans seeing the incident as a “major problem,” according to an Associated Press poll in July 2016.
Chris Borick, director of the Muhlenberg Institute of Public Opinion in Pennsylvania, told The Sacramento Bee that Harris has problems with likeability as a candidate.
“The very nature of the vice presidency presents a challenge in terms of connections with the public, and when you add in the intersection of Harris’s gender identity, multiracial background and California roots it seems a barrier to broad public acceptance is created,” Borick told the Bee. “These factors, along with her personal style, don’t easily mesh with many Americans’ comfort zone and Harris ultimately emerges with a classic likability problem.”
Then-60-year-old Brown started dating then-29-year-old Harris in 1994 while he was still married to his estranged wife, according to Reuters. Harris was a prosecutor in the Alameda County District Attorney’s office at the time, and Brown appointed her to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the California Medical Assistance Commission., according to a 1994 article from the LA Times.
Harris’ approval rating has increased since she announced her candidacy for the president, going from approximately 35% in a July 19-20 ABC News/Ipsos poll to 43% July 26-27 poll. The Harris campaign has been leaning into internet culture memes around her candidacy in a bid to boost her image, including jokes around her “coconut tree” remarks and launching a TikTok account in July.
The Harris campaign has been leaning more into her role as a prosecutor in California as she faces former president Donald Trump, according to NPR. She remarked that she “knows Donald Trump’s type” at a rally in Atlanta Tuesday, seemingly referring to his felony conviction, according to the Associated Press.
The Harris campaign did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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