Kamala Harris Joins Biden With Historically Low Approval Rating

Dan Quayle, who infamously misspelled “potato” while judging a sixth-grade spelling bee, is the last Vice President to be as unpopular as Harris. The 12-year-old student who was unnecessarily corrected by the then-vice president later told US media that it "showed that the rumors about the vice president are true – that he's an idiot."

US Vice President Kamala Harris has the lowest approval rating of any vice president in their first term since Dan Quayle in the early 1990s.

According to a poll analysis by a popular poll aggregator, Harris’ approval rating dropped from 41.7% in January to 36.3%. A different poll analysis found the disparity even worse, at -16 with 39% of voters holding a favorable view of Harris and 55% holding an unfavorable view of the Vice President. That analysis found that Harris is less popular with voters than US President Joe Biden, himself a historically unpopular president.

The poll makes her less popular than Mike Pence, Biden, Dick Cheney, and Al Gore were during their first term.

Voters may be paying more attention to Harris than previous vice presidents because of age concerns about Biden, who became the oldest US President ever elected in 2020 and will be 82 by inauguration day should he win reelection and 86 by the end of his second term.

According to a poll from September, 77% of all voters, including 65% of Democrats say they have concerns about Biden’s age and his fitness to hold office. If Biden were unable to complete his second term, then Harris would be sworn in as President.

While Biden does have two primary opponents who are polling higher than many of former President Donald Trump’s opponents, the Democratic party has all but canceled the primary, declining to hold debates and putting only Biden on the ballot in several states, including Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Tennessee.

“To realize just how unpopular Kamala Harris is, you have to keep in mind the historical significance of it all. No one in her position has had this low of favorabilities in a first term since Dan Quayle,” Thomas Gift, who heads up the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London told US media. “That's saying something. So it's no surprise, especially with Biden's age, that Republicans keep hammering home a simple point: a vote for Biden is a vote for Harris.” Thomas Gift, who heads up the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London.”

If the Democratic party is hoping that Harris’ relative youth may ease voters’ concerns, these poll numbers add another point of concern for the DNC.