Vice President Kamala Harris is known for breaking records. When she raised her right hand in 2021 and was sworn into office, she became the first female vice president in American history. She also became — as the headlines so vibrantly pointed out — the first South Asian and black vice president. These two accomplishments on her first day of office proved to be only the beginning of records she would break.
On Monday, NBC News reported that Harris shattered another record, but this isn’t one she’ll be proud of. An NBC poll found that Harris’s net-negative rating is at -17, the lowest vice presidential rating in the history of the poll. In October of 2019, former Vice President Mike Pence received a -4 rating, a significantly higher rating than Harris.
As the news of her low rating spread, several political influencers and consultants tweeted a sarcastic response.
“Best insurance policy Joe Biden has ever gotten,” tweeted GOP consultant Giancarlo Sopo. In GOP consultant Matt Wolking’s sarcastic tweet, he said, “‘We did it, Joe!’” referencing Harris’s response to winning the election that was caught on film.
Although there’s no consensus on why she received such a low rating, some experts have attributed it to the Biden administration's biggest policy failures, as well as her poor PR image.
“Biden placed Harris as his point person in charge of the southern border and passing HR1 — the Democrats’ election takeover bill — the former an abysmal failure, and the latter a nonstarter in Congress,” Matt Carpenter, director of FRC Action, told The Washington Stand. “As unpopular as Biden is, his administration has seen movement on their legislative agenda. Too bad for Harris, none of that success has been attributed to her efforts.” The second reason, he suspected, is due to Harris’s “bizarre speeches, complete with circular reasoning and poorly-timed laughter — often described as ‘cackling.’”
Other reasons may be attributed to the tension within the White House early on in President Biden’s term. Not even a year into her time in office, CNN reported that mounting “dysfunction and infighting” was taking place on Harris’s team. Drama between Biden and Harris was unmistakably clear from the start, and the cohesiveness of their administration was called into question. As a result, Harris’s Communications Director Ashley Etienne announced her resignation in November of 2021. Symone Sanders, Harris’s chief spokesperson and senior adviser, also took her leave at the end of the year as well.
Despite her rocky start, Harris has sought America’s approval through her “inclusiveness” of the LGBTQ movement as well as her pro-choice stance. As NBC News put it, the Biden administration is “on track to be [the] most LGBTQ-inclusive in U.S. history.” More recently, Harris has spoken out regarding these issues, sparking an angry response from the Right.
At the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs ruling, Harris gave a speech in Charlotte, “highlighting the fight to protect abortion rights at both the state and federal level.” After she left the stage, the vice president requested an exclusive interview with Teen Vogue, because she wanted the teen readers to know that they “are leaders” in the pro-abortion movement.
“You are leaders by virtue of the fact that you are reading this,” she said. “And I’m counting on you because your voice and your perspective is so important to the future of our country. And one of the significant ways you will express your voice is with your vote, your ability to organize, [and] your ability to remind each other that you are leaders and can help lead the direction of our country.”
Another controversial claim made by Harris in June was that “book bans” cause LGBTQ people to “fear for their [lives].”
“This fight is not over. When I look at the fact that in our country, we’re looking at somewhere around 600 bills being proposed or passed — anti-LGBTQ bills — book bans, a policy approach that is ‘don’t say gay,’ people in fear for their life, people afraid to be, to be,” she said on Monday in front of the Stonewall Inn in New York City.
Although Harris’s agenda aligns with the far-Left, her ratings are the worst for any vice president. So what is the issue? As the backlash to Pride Month has shown, most Americans are running from the extreme ideology of the current White House. Not only that, said Carpenter, but “In the absence of a key policy role, she has to rely on how the public perceives her, and unfortunately for the vice president, she is seen by many as off-putting and abrasive.”
Perhaps the issue is personality and policy.
