Vice President Kamala Harris has struggled to gain the approval of her constituents.
Her approval ratings have consistently toiled in the thirties. In June, an NBC poll “found that only 32% of registered voters have a positive view of Harris, compared to 49% with a negative view, including 39% with a “very negative view.””
The numbers meant that Harris had a net -17 rating, which happened to be the lowest for any vice president ever recorded.
Kamala Harris Has Thoughts
On Monday, Linsey Davis of ABC News asked Harris about the June poll, specifically “how much of a role, if any, that you feel that race and gender play in that?”
Good question. I’ve always wondered what Harris thought here, given that her defenders often cite race and gender as the reason why Harris has been so deeply criticized through her first term in the vice presidency.
Does Harris herself agree with that assessment?
Here’s Harris’s response: “Well there are also polls that say I have great approval ratings. I think the point that has to be made is that there are attempts to create distractions away from the accomplishments of our administration. We’ve created over 13 million jobs since we’ve been in office. Joe Biden and I have been responsible for 800,000 new manufacturing jobs in the United States. Not to mention what we have done to restore America’s integrity on the international stage.”
A Foolish Answer
She didn’t answer the question.
She snaked out real-clever like, as most well-trained politicians will when they don’t want to answer the question. Lack of a direct answer aside, her response is solid – except for one little quirk: there are no polls saying Harris has a great approval rating, which conservative Twitter was quick to remind us.
RNC Research’s account tweeted: “There are literally no such polls.” (Sidebar: “literally” is quickly becoming one of the most over-used words in the English language, especially on the left, where the word seems to be used so indiscriminately that the word is losing its meaning.)
Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer challenged Harris to “name one” of the polls she was referencing. (Sidebar: Spicer is no stranger to fibbing. He once claimed on national television that Trump’s inauguration had a higher attendance than Obama’s.)
GOP rapid response director Jake Schneider tweeted “There are literally zero polls showing Kamala Harris with ‘great approval ratings.” (Okay, maybe literally is trending on the right, too.)
Jay Shepard, the Republican National Committee member, went ad hominem with his response, suggesting that “Now we can all laugh at her the way she laughs. (I don’t have much to say about Jay Shepard because I’ve never heard of him.)
Blunt Force Truth podcast co-host Dr. Mark Young tweeted “Yeah those polls don’t exist.”
Harris’s rating is low
I don’t condone Twitter dunking. It’s an obnoxious habit and I’ve made light of the conservatives doing so in response to Harris’s answer. But at present, Spicer and Shepard and Schneider are correct. Harris’s approval rating has been, and is currently, low. Maybe some random poll of some micro-demographic in Cambridge or New Haven found common support of Harris; maybe polls taken exclusively of Amherst College’s Young Democrats found Harris with above-50% approval.
But with respect to the general population, Harris has never been popular.
Harrison Kass is the Senior Editor and opinion writer at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.
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