Vice President Kamala Harris wasn’t impressed.
“Joe Biden is our candidate,” she told a CBS News reporter outside a fundraiser in San Francisco on Tuesday night, amid signs that the dam of Democratic support for the president may be breaking.
The reporter tried a different tactic, asking him if he was ready to lead the country if necessary.
“I’m proud to be Joe Biden’s running mate,” she replied.
A week after Biden’s disastrous debate performance, Harris is attracting more attention than she has since her early, shaky days as Biden’s No. 2. Opinion polls and the party’s base suggest she has an edge over other candidates to replace Biden if he chooses to drop out of the race against former President Trump.
But Harris finds herself in a delicate position, adding to the political pressures she has faced throughout her presidency: She cannot afford to give even the slightest hint that she is seeking to succeed Biden, who at 81 is the oldest president in history, but she must be vigilant to ensure that no one else takes her place if Biden’s post becomes vacant.
“She absolutely has to dance with the person who appointed her, and any distance between her and the only person on earth she can call her boss would be seen as disloyal,” said the former adviser, who asked not to be named to avoid angering Democrats on the succession issue. “As things continue to change, she will inevitably be put in a position where she has to make decisions, or decisions may be made for her.”
So far, she has received relatively good marks from Democrats for her attempts to defend Biden, while Republicans continue to deride her public speeches as rhetoric.
“It’s interesting to see people who have been critical of her for the last three and a half years now say, ‘Yeah, I support her,'” said one supporter who is in regular contact with Harris and Biden aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid upsetting friends in Biden’s inner circle. “People believe, and have believed, for a long time that she can prosecute this case.”
Appearing on CNN minutes after last week’s debate, with most Democrats still in a state of shock, Harris offered her first version of Biden’s defense, acknowledging what she called a “slow start” but insisting, “I’ve looked at the last three and a half years and I’m not going to spend all night talking to you about these 90 minutes.”
Harris has made similar claims since then, traveling to speaking engagements and fundraisers, including one Tuesday night in San Francisco, where she characterized both the debate and the possibility of Trump becoming president again as “issues that cannot be ignored.”
“She’s doing her job. To suggest that there’s somebody holding back and trying to get going in 2028, no, it’s not Kamala Harris,” said Donna Brazile, an ally who wants Biden to remain at the top of the shortlist.
Her rival, Gov. Gavin Newsom, has taken a similar stance, standing with Biden’s public defender and distancing himself from forces in his party that are calling for the president to step down. Newsom said in a fundraising email that he plans to visit the White House on Wednesday night and “stand by the president.”
Ms. Harris had a customary lunch with Mr. Biden on Wednesday, and she also sat in on a campaign conference call with Mr. Biden, where she reassured staff that she was in this race to the end, according to a person familiar with the call who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We’re not going to back down. We’re going to follow the president’s direction. We’re going to fight, and we’re going to win,” Ms. Harris told staffers, the person said.
Biden committed to having weekly lunches when he took office, but the meetings have been inconsistent, suggesting that Biden often relies on longtime aides rather than his vice president.
But if he were to run for president, he could campaign on his administration’s legislative successes, including environmental and infrastructure spending bills.
Republicans will likely focus on Harris’ role as a key figure in Biden’s immigration policy, after Biden appointed her early in his presidency to oversee a strategy to shore up the economic, security and political conditions in Central America to stem the “root causes” of migration.
But Harris has been anything but satisfied with the role, with Republicans attacking the record number of border arrests under the Biden administration and gleefully casting her as a “border czar.”
Harris rose to political power after the Supreme Court overturned abortion rights in 2022, leading the White House response. Though she was unable to change the law or stop Republican-leaning states from passing sweeping restrictions on abortion procedures, she used the issue to help Democrats gain an advantage in the 2022 midterm elections. Democrats hope to use the issue again if they can overcome concerns about Biden’s fitness to serve as president.
A CNN poll released Tuesday found that three-quarters of U.S. voters believe Democrats have a better chance of winning the White House without Biden. Among the potential replacements, only Harris has trailed Trump by less than two percentage points in approval ratings. Her supporters have long argued that her name recognition and control of the party organization would give her an advantage over potential rivals, including Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Rep. James E. Clyburn of Colorado, a key Biden ally, said on MSNBC on Tuesday that he supports Harris as his replacement but that his first preference would be for Biden to remain the nominee.
“But I would love to support her in the future,” he said.
But deep misgivings about Harris remain within the party. Even a CNN poll suggests she could trail Trump in a theoretical matchup, and that doesn’t take into account the media scrutiny and Republican attacks that would come with leading the nomination. And while Harris’s struggles early in her term led to high staff turnover and poor polling ratings that negatively impacted many voters, her polling averages have improved slightly in the past few months.
A USA Today/Suffolk poll in March found that 54% of voters said she was not qualified to be president, while 38% said she was. Focus group surveys provided to The Times by a pro-Biden Republican group earlier this year showed that swing voters and even black voters had negative impressions of her, some of which her supporters believe has to do with her race and gender.
But even if Harris has work to do, other potential replacements face less national scrutiny and could pose a bigger risk to the party.
“She’s been in the spotlight and has struggled as a result,” the former adviser said. “No one would say she’s a nobody at this point.”
Bierman reported from Washington and Wiley from San Francisco.
