Throughout the 2020 campaign, reports swirled that President Joe Biden, 78, would serve only one term. Even though he said in December 2019, “I don’t have plans on one term,” he would be 82 years old when inaugurated for a second term, which means he likely won’t run again.
That puts Vice President Kamala Harris in the catbird seat. At just 56, she’d be poised to be the Democratic Party’s frontrunner for the 2024 nomination. But some Democrats think she’s not a strong candidate and wouldn’t even be able to beat the former president should he decide to run, according to a new report.
“Many Democrats, including some current senior administration officials, are concerned she could not defeat whomever the Republican Party puts up — even if it were Donald Trump,” Axios reported.
“One Democratic operative tells Axios’ Alayna Treene that most Democrats aren’t saying, “‘Oh, no, our heir apparent is f***ing up, what are we gonna do?’ It’s more that people think, ‘Oh, she’s f***ing up, maybe she shouldn’t be the heir apparent.’ Some Democrats close to the White House are increasingly concerned about Harris’s handling of high-profile issues and political tone-deafness, and question her ability to maintain the coalition that Biden rode to the White House, sources tell Axios’ Hans Nichols.”
Harris has been roundly criticized for dodging the illegal immigration crisis along the US-Mexico border, even after Biden named her Border Czar and ordered her to address the situation.
For more than 100 days, Harris refused to visit the border, instead of traveling to Guatemala and Mexico last month. There, she evaded questions about when she would visit the border, telling NBC’s Lester Holt that “I haven’t been to Europe” before adding, “I don’t understand the point that you’re making.”
Finally, after Trump announced his own visit to the border, Harris traveled to El Paso — hundreds of miles from the hotspot.
Then last week, Politico dropped a bombshell, citing nearly two dozen current and former vice presidential aides as saying, in one person’s words, that the office was a “s***show.”
“The handling of the border visit was the latest chaotic moment for a staff that’s quickly become mired in them. Harris’ team is experiencing low morale, porous lines of communication, and diminished trust among aides and senior officials. Much of the frustration internally is directed at Tina Flournoy, Harris’ chief of staff, a veteran of Democratic politics who began working for her earlier this year,” Politico reported.
“In interviews, 22 current and former vice presidential aides, administration officials, and associates of Harris and Biden described a tense and at times dour office atmosphere. Aides and allies said Flournoy, in an apparent effort to protect Harris, has instead created an insular environment where ideas are ignored or met with harsh dismissals and decisions are dragged out. Often, they said, she refuses to take responsibility for delicate issues and blames staffers for the negative results that ensue,” the liberal political website wrote.