With Joe Biden endorsing Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee after his decision to exit the presidential race on Sunday, the first female US vice president "will likely have to answer questions" about her last botched campaign for the top job, the Washington Post has reported, according to Sputnik.
Harris, who has said that she intends to "earn and win" the nomination, is now facing "an abrupt launch" of her surprise second presidential campaign, the success of which will depend on how she resolves the problems that hampered the first campaign, according to the newspaper.
In this vein, the Washington Post cited an unnamed Democratic strategist as saying that Harris previously failed to live up to Democrats’ expectations because "she ran a terrible campaign (which kicked off in January 2019)."
Her efforts, which notably collapsed before a single ballot was cast, were disrupted by "declining cash, an inability to articulate a cohesive campaign message, and a steady patter of departing staffers", the newspaper pointed out.
The report comes after Harris’ approval numbers dropped, following Biden’s "catastrophic" debate against former US President Donald Trump on June 27. According to FiveThirtyEight's average, the vice president’s disapproval rating stood at 51.2 % on July 5, compared to 49.4 % on June 27.
Last year's polls showed that Harris had the lowest approval rating of any first-term US vice president since Dan Quayle in the early 1990s. The surveys indicated that the 49th vice president’s approval rating dropped from 41.7% to 36.3% in early 2023.
Previous polls revealed that Harris, who has been repeatedly criticized for turning a blind eye to the US migration crisis, and keeping mum on America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, is "not qualified" or "not at all qualified" to be US president.
MNA/PR