Pollster Nate Silver described Vice President Kamala Harris as “mediocre at best” and said former President Donald Trump would likely defeat her in the upcoming presidential election if she replaces President Joe Biden during a podcast posted to YouTube on Wednesday.
Many Americans, including Trump, have speculated that Harris will or should take Biden’s place at the top of the Democratic ticket in the wake of his disastrous June debate performance against the former president. Silver on the “Risky Business” podcast said that even if Harris is a lackluster politician, she is preferable to Biden as she is mentally competent, even though he thought that she would likely lose in a matchup against Trump.
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Prominent Pollster Says Kamala Harris Is ‘Mediocre At Best’ And Would ‘Probably Lose’ To Trump pic.twitter.com/Fikj3KBGpI
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“I mean, you can think Kamala Harris is a mediocre at best politician, which I do, and she might not be your cup of tea, but it’s just a bizarre argument,” Silver said. “Do you not have the leverage to say, ‘Let’s agree that Kamala Harris is a less bad option?’ She is capable of actually prosecuting the case against Trump. You’re not lying to the American public about her fitness for office. And you know what? She’ll probably lose, but Biden’s probably gonna lose too.”
“What’s the world in which Biden wins that Harris doesn’t win? I mean, it’s like the worlds where Biden wins involve worlds where the polling is so far off we don’t know anything to begin with, or where Trump goes to jail or something,” he continued. “And like any Democrat can win under those conditions, any halfway competent Democrat. Maybe we’re not going to get more than a halfway competent option.”
CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said Monday he would “take a roll of the dice” on Harris if he were a Democratic donor, as she is polling ahead of Biden with independent voters.
“I don’t mean to diagnose him medically, but you can’t project, ‘We are the campaign that is just a steady hand, competence, no chaos anymore.’ That cat is out of the bag,” Silver added. “It’s too late for that. You’re selling people on a lie… The honest thing to do is to say we chose this woman to be vice president, and she has served as vice president for three and a half years now. At any moment, she could become president. Joe Biden could have a heart attack. There could be some type of attack on wherever Joe Biden is located. We elected people, elected Kamala Harris to be vice president, and clearly, you’re in a situation where she is more fit to be president than Biden over the next four years.”
Trump leads Harris 45.6% to 43.9% in a head-to-head matchup, according to an average of recent polls calculated by The Hill. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll released in early July found Harris and Trump neck-and-neck, with 43% of voters backing the former president and 42% supporting the vice president.
“What’s it say about her? What’s it say about how cynical the decision was? Maybe you picked her in… summer 2020 because you were in a period where there was a lot of this racial reckoning, so-called, right? But she is a senator from California; she’s been a district attorney, right? She is someone who I think is generally regarded as very smart and competent,” Silver continued. “The problems were mostly the fact that, politically, she wasn’t a very compelling candidate, although she might have some upside potential. But what’s it say about Kamala Harris that none of these Democrats entrust her? If I were her, I’d be like, ‘Fuck these fucking people.’”
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