Breitbart Business Digest: Harris Is Burdened by the Biden-Harris Economic Record

Harris Cannot Unburden Herself of What Has Been

Will Kamala Harris be able to overcome the American public’s unhappiness over the U.S. economy and the role the policies of the Biden-Harris administration have played shaping it?

The vice president is famous for frequently speaking a mysterious phrase invoking “what can be, unburdened by what has been.” In a bit of poetic justice, her hopes to win the presidency may turn on the American people forgetting her role and support for the economic policies and inflation that has been.

Although President Biden’s physical and mental infirmity took center stage in the weeks after his debate with Donald Trump, it is important not to forget that Biden was already deeply unpopular, Americans considered the economy to be in a bad place, and his economic leadership was seen as a failure. Now that Biden has anointed Harris as his favored successor, she will face an uphill struggle to separate herself from Biden’s failures.

Biden was trailing Trump by three points or so in the Real Clear Politics polling average. The YouGov poll for The Economist, conducted between July 13 and July 19, had Biden down by two points at 41 percent, with Trump at 43 percent, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. at four percent. When asked to choose in a hypothetical race with Harris in the place of Biden, Trump’s advantage ticked up to five points, with Trump at 44 percent, Harris at 39 percent, and Kennedy at five percent.

The poll was taken before Biden announced that he was bringing his candidacy to an end—although there was plenty of speculation that he might do so at the time. Interestingly, just 88 percent of those surveyed who said they would support Biden said they would support Harris. So, she is going into this race without the full-backing of Biden’s supporters—although perhaps the rallying around her candidacy that we have seen from elected Democratic officials will change that.

So, where would those defecting Biden supporters go? None chose Trump, which is not surprising. Two percent said they would switch to Kennedy. Jill Stein and Cornel West get one percent each—the same percentage as say they would not vote. Two percent selected someone else. Five percent said they were not sure who they would support in a Harris vs. Trump showdown.

Harris Is Disliked and Seen as Lacking Sympathy

This is not a case where Biden has “passed the torch” to a much more popular successor. The share of voters saying they have a favorable opinion of Biden in the YouGov poll was just 38 percent, twenty points under the 58 percent who said they have an unfavorable opinion. Harris fared only slightly better in favorability, at 39 percent favorable and 54 percent unfavorable. So, she might not be liked more than Biden, but she is significantly less disliked.

The breakdown among Republicans shows that Harris is somewhat less disliked than Biden. Ninety-four percent of Republicans and voters who say they lean Republican say they have a disfavorable opinion of Biden—while just 91 percent say that about Harris. The favorability gap is narrower, at five percent for Biden and six percent for Harris.

Among registered independents and those who lean independent, Biden gets a 21 percent favorability share and a 63 percent disfavorability share. Harris is both less liked and less disliked, coming in at 18 percent favorable and 54 percent disfavorable. The share of independent voters saying they haven’t formed an opinion is much higher for Harris—at 28 percent versus Biden’s 15 percent—suggesting that there is indeed a significant number of independents who can be considered “in play” now that she is the front-runner for the Democrat nomination.

The YouGov poll also asked voters how much they thought Harris “cares about the needs and problems of people like you.” Twenty-one percent said they think she cares a lot and another 20 percent said she cares “some.” Ten percent said “not much” and 40 percent said she doesn’t care at all.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris raise their glasses in a toast at a reception on January 24, 2023, in the East Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Erin Scott via Flickr)

That puts her negatives even higher than Biden’s. The current occupant of the White House gets 22 percent of Americans saying he cares a lot and 19 percent saying he cares some. Sixteen percent say he doesn’t care much, and 36 percent say he doesn’t care at all.

Among independents and independent leaners, 37 percent say Biden doesn’t care at all, and 18 percent say he doesn’t care much. For Harris, those negatives shift to 43 percent saying she doesn’t care at all and 10 percent saying she doesn’t care much. So, when it comes to giving the impression of being completely uncaring, Harris is worse than Biden.

A Economic Policy Dead-Ender

Disliked and seen as unsympathizing by a large share of the public, Harris will likely have to articulate a vision for the U.S. economy and especially inflation that differentiates her from Biden. Twenty-five percent of voters say inflation is the most important issue, making it by far the top issue in this election. Fifty-eight percent say they disapprove of Biden’s handling of inflation, including 47 percent who say they strongly disapprove.

Can Harris plausibly convince voters that she will do better than Biden on inflation and the economy? That seems unlikely. To this point, Harris has been an ardent supporter of Biden’s economic policies and his record—often going as far as to repeat the falsehoods and exaggerations the president likes to tell about that record.

Vice President Kamala Harris deliver remarks during an American Rescue Plan virtual event with President Joe Biden on March 12, 2021, in the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz via Flickr)

By all accounts, Harris is burdened by the same intellectual trap that left Biden’s White House flatfooted in dealing with the public’s unhappiness on the economy. The Biden camp—including Harris—are convinced that the American people are just wrong to have judged them so harshly on the economy and inflation—a conviction that has hindered their ability to pivot toward better policies. The strategy so far has been to insist that things are better than people think—and to hope that someday people will come around to seeing things that way.

Harris, in short, has been a dead-ender for Biden, fighting all the way to the end for the president’s unpopular economic record. That will make it all the harder to convince Americans that things will change if they vote her into the presidency.