Kamala Harris Could Beat Donald Trump

Comparing Harris's likely chances to Biden's and other Democrats' show she'd be competitive, which means fear of nominating her shouldn't be part of the president's decision

Should Joe Biden drop out of the presidential race due to concerns about age-related cognitive decline? Or should critics accept that Biden is the nominee, the only alternative to Donald Trump, and drop their concerns to focus on the general election?

A version of this discussion was probably inevitable, and maybe it should’ve happened earlier, but it’s a reasonable reaction to Biden’s terrible debate performance, and now is better than September. There’s less than four months until Election Day, so whatever Democrats and the broader pro-democracy coalition decide, they need to resolve it quickly and unite.

This choice could be incredibly consequential, but involves unknowns, and every option has risks. To inform (and ideally spur) the debate, this article assesses one of the biggest: Vice President Kamala Harris.

1. Would Harris’s chances against Trump be worse than Biden’s?

2. If Biden drop outs, would Harris’s chances against Trump be worse than another candidate selected in a contested convention?

I phrased these as “worse than” instead of “better than,” because my aim here is not to advocate switching to Harris—I don’t really know—but to show how concerns that Harris’s chances would be worse are overblown, and therefore that fear of a Harris candidacy should not be a decisive factor.

The easier one to assess is scenario 2, in which Biden chooses to end his candidacy and the Democrats argue it out rather than transition to Harris. A rapid, party-elites-only selection process has more variables, all of which would need to go right.

Another candidate, such as a governor from a key swing state, might have a better chance against Trump. But it’s unlikely that anyone’s electoral advantage over Harris is so large that it’d overcome the disadvantages of going around the vice president.

The veep’s main function is to be the president’s backup. If Biden dies or resigns, Harris is president. If he drops out, then as long as Harris wants to run, party insiders maneuvering around her would anger her base and set off overlapping factional fights, as various Democrats taste the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Maybe it would all work out, with the party uniting for a strong fall campaign. Or maybe it would leave Democrats bitter, distracted, and divided. 

Harris bypasses that risk. She’s already on the ticket.

This has practical advantages too. Biden campaign funds can easily go to Harris, but not anyone else. That’s not the most important thing, since a new nominee would get a surge of donations and free media attention, but it’s an asset.

Harris is already on the ballot everywhere, which means she’s the only Biden alternative immune to Trump-sympathetic lawyers, judges, and local officials trying to keep another name off. For example, if a state already printed ballots and won’t change them, and courts decline to force it, then the new Democratic nominee has to be a write-in. Meanwhile, Biden’s name would still appear, drawing some votes even if he dropped out.

With Harris, the worst they could do is keep the ballot saying “Biden-Harris” instead of “Harris-Running Mate,” and she’d get the votes either way.

With almost four months to go, the party can unite around the vice president in time. Waiting until after the late August convention would leave barely two months to campaign, probably not enough for someone without funding and local offices to really go national.

Polling data from throughout the year shows Harris and Biden at comparable levels against Trump, with similar or better chances than other possible alternatives (Whitmer, Newsom, Buttigieg, etc). A CNN poll taken in the three days after the debate found Harris closest to Trump, with various governors a couple of points behind her, and Biden trailing all of them.

That shouldn’t be taken as proof Harris is the Democrat most likely to win, but it indicates she’s competitive. 

However, many arguments against Harris can’t be addressed with match-up polls. Talking to pollsters in July about a hypothetical candidate is different from voting in November after she’s been under the most intense spotlight.

Harris skeptics aren’t relying on current polls, they’re predicting that her personal weaknesses and bias against her mean she’ll lose to Trump. But while these would be challenges for a Harris campaign, they do not clearly indicate that Harris’s overall chances would be worse than another Democrat’s.

Harris is Associated with Biden Administration Policies

Yes, but are we sure that’s bad? Many of the policies are popular. Just about every macroeconomic metric is trending positively, and the U.S. is outperforming other developed economies. Crime is declining. Other than Biden, Harris is best positioned to do the incumbent’s move of taking credit for positive news while vowing to help people who are struggling.

And since she’s had a relatively low profile (like many vice presidents), she’s not closely tied to specific policies. One of Biden’s worst issues among Americans who might vote Democrat is the Gaza war, with much of the anger directed at Biden himself. Harris can credibly distance herself from Biden’s approach enough to win some Americans who would never vote Trump but consider it immoral to affirm Biden, such as over 100,000 who voted “uncommitted” in the Michigan Democratic Primary.

Republicans Will Attack Her

Of course Harris would get attacked. Incessantly, mercilessly, often unfairly. But that’s already the case with Biden, and would be with anyone.

If Democrats change nominees, Republicans would have to scramble to adjust. They might not be able to settle on a main line of attack, as they have with Biden’s age, and wouldn’t have years of hammering it to build upon.

Republicans, conservative media, and Trump himself would be awful to Harris—the New York Post is already running pieces warning America will be “subjected” to its “first DEI president”—but what matters most electorally is not how racist and sexist their attacks get, but how many voters they sway.

It’s worth noting that they’re not acting like they think she would be a weaker nominee than Biden, hoping he drops out. Anticipating a possible switch, some vocal Trump supporters are trying to denounce Harris by claiming she “misled” the public about Biden’s mental fitness, which is an inherently weaker attack, and shows how much they’re hanging on the age issue.

The Media Will Be Savage

Mainstream media outlets, most notably the New York Times, would cover Harris harshly. They’d probably find something about her to fixate on as much as Hillary Clinton’s emails, which they’ll treat as equivalent to Trump’s coup attempt, criminal conviction, liability for sexual assault, attacks on rule of law, and calls to terminate the Constitution combined.

But it’s hard to see how media could hit anything harder than Biden’s age. They’ve made it one of the biggest stories all year, with banner headlines and regular updates. I’m writing this on July 5, and the New York Times’ homepage currently has four articles and a video about Biden’s age on top.

As I’m editing on July 6, the homepage’s top seven articles are on Biden’s age, all different from the four that led yesterday’s coverage. The Washington Post looks similar, with the top of the homepage and much of the op-ed page devoted to it. Whatever mainstream media would do with Harris, it’s unlikely to be worse for Democrats than that. 

The only thing that could stop the media from treating Biden’s age as a central narrative of the election is Biden dropping out in favor of a younger nominee. You can call that unfair, you can criticize it—and you’d have a point—but the campaign still has to navigate it.

She Was Bad in the 2020 Primary

Harris performed poorly in the previous Democratic primary, drawing attention in the first debate and wilting thereafter. With declining polls, she withdrew before the first contest in Iowa.

But it doesn’t really matter. A multi-candidate competition for a relatively small pool of base voters (and donors) is very different from a general election, let alone one where the other candidate is Donald Trump.

Joe Biden flopped in the 1988 and 2008 presidential primaries, then won the 2020 nomination and the White House. In between he served eight years as vice president, which likely helped him in 2020, but Biden didn’t get much better at running in primaries. Circumstances changed, and it was his moment.

This moment could be Kamala Harris’s. She’s the vice president, and at least 19 years younger than Trump or Biden.

Or maybe she won’t be up to it. No one knows. Neither Harris nor any other Biden alternative has headlined a national campaign, and no party in modern U.S. history has seen the primary winner drop out. If Biden stays in, no nominee has been this old, had that bad of a debate, and faced calls to drop out this late in the process. It’s uncharted territory either way.

Every non-Harris name under discussion is a primary loser or nationally untested. Harris, at least, has some experience on a winning national ticket.

Her Race and Gender

This is the core of it. Arguments that Harris stands a worse chance against Trump than Biden or a Democratic governor emphasize racism and sexism. Not from themselves, of course—almost everyone making this argument would vote for Harris over Trump in a heartbeat—but from other people, enough to tip the election.

However, while racism and sexism are powerful forces in America, and create unfair challenges for any presidential candidate who isn’t white and male, they’re being overrated as electoral factors in 2024.

Or maybe people don’t realize how big the age thing is.

After the debate, a CBS-YouGov poll found that 72% of registered voters said Biden lacked the mental and cognitive health to serve as president, an increase of seven points from their poll a few weeks prior. 46% of registered Democrats said Biden should not be running for president, a ten point increase from pre-debate polls.

That is surely a main reason why FiveThirtyEight’s polling average shows Democrats ahead by a fraction of a point in the generic Congressional ballot, but Biden trailing Trump by 2.5. And why in multiple states, Biden’s polling lags behind Democratic Senate and gubernatorial candidates.

Biden bowing out wouldn’t only erase the age problem, it would also open a potent line of attack against Trump. The president’s next biggest liabilities are immigration and the lingering impact of inflation, which would likely remain a political drag for any Democrat. So the argument against Harris is essentially that the negative political effect of her race and gender will outweigh the negative impact of age on Biden plus the non-specific benefits of incumbency. And that’s where I’m skeptical.

Advantages of incumbency include the ability to generate free media attention while looking presidential, which Biden isn’t using, and widespread name recognition. But nearly every 2024 voter has heard of Joe Biden, and their disapproval outweighs approval by 20.1 points in FiveThirtyEight’s average. (Harris is net negative 14.1, which is relatively better, but still not good.)

Biden has a sizable base, but how many Americans currently supporting him would not support the Democratic nominee against Trump if Biden voluntarily passes the torch? 

Almost all partisan Democrats and committed anti-Trumpers are voting for the most viable alternative no matter who it is. We can see that in public opinion data. Polls showing that nearly three quarters of voters think Biden isn’t cognitively up to the job also show him almost tied with Trump.

But there’s a sizable, perhaps decisive chunk of voters who are either undecided between Trump and Biden, or open to voting Democrat but currently thinking “neither.” Voters who think Biden is too old for the job aren’t flocking to Trump—who is also old and often incoherent, albeit in a different way—but they could stay home, leave president blank, or vote third party.

How many voters prioritize racist and/or sexist beliefs, but aren’t already voting Trump? More specifically, among working class white voters in the midwest—or Latino voters in Arizona and Nevada, or [insert key demographic group in a swing state here]—would more refuse to vote for a Black woman than would refrain from voting Biden because of concerns about his age?

Yes, Trumpism is to some extent a backlash to America electing its first Black president. But Barack Obama hasn’t been the primary figure in U.S. politics for a while. The largest political force in the country today is the backlash to Trump. Part of the reason the U.S. right is attacking democracy and pursuing minority rule is they know most Americans disagree with them, and that the number is growing.

Yes, sexism played a role in Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016. But the lesson was not “America will never elect a woman.” Despite the drag of running for her party’s third consecutive term plus decades of conservative media attacks, Hillary won the popular vote, and narrowly lost the electoral vote when everything broke right for her opponent, including foreign interference.

Since then, there’s been eight years of population turnover, various events, and a lot of conversations about race and gender in the media, at work, online, and elsewhere.

Some voters, and some media coverage, will be biased against Harris because she’s Black, because she’s a woman, or specifically because she’s a Black woman. And some will be energized by a younger, more diverse leader taking on Trump. This is the first presidential election after the Dobbs ruling, and there may be advantages in a woman making the case for abortion rights, rather than an old man.

Given the widespread negative sentiment about Biden’s age and Harris’s competitive standing in polls, the number of voters who would be energized by the change is probably similar or higher than the racist-and-sexist-but-not-already-voting-Trump constituency.

Uncertainties abound, no matter what Democrats decide to do. No way to avoid that. But we can conclude with a reasonable amount of confidence that Harris’s chances are probably not worse than Biden’s.

The president won enough delegates in primaries that if he wants the nomination, it’s his. But his decision, and whatever others urge him to do, should not be based on fear of a Harris candidacy. And if Biden decides to drop out, transitioning to Harris likely has a better chance than any open process, given the additional hurdles to getting anyone else the nomination, a united party, and a national campaign.