Critics of Kamala Harris (and they’re not all Republicans) cite the following perceived weaknesses.[1] 

            Regardless of what the Democratic “pezzonovante” think about Harris, voters don’t like her.  When she ran for Attorney General of California, she beat her Republican opponent by less than a percentage point.  All other Democrats in state-wide races won by at least 10 points.  In the 2020 presidential primaries, she flashed briefly, then had to drop out before the first primary.  As Vice President, she hasn’t had an approval rating in the polls above 50 percent since September 2021.  That’s only nine months after she took office.  On 22 July 2024, her approval rating was reported to be 38.3 percent with a positive view of Harris and 51.4 percent with a negative view.  Although she quickly has closed the polling gap between herself and Donald Trump, it’s early days yet.  Moreover, she’s closed the gap between herself and a really obnoxious person.  We’re into “world’s tallest midget” territory. 

            She is believed to be intellectually lazy.  She flunked the California bar exam the first time she took it; 72 percent of first-time test-takers passed.  That smacks of a failure to prepare.  According to the Washington Post, “Staffers who worked for Harris before she was vice president said….that Harris would refuse to wade into her briefing materials…, then berate employees when she appeared unprepared.”  It seems that this pattern continued in the early years (at least) of her vice presidency, because her chief of staff quit over the same issue. 

            She is often inarticulate.  Fox has a field day with her “word salads.”  “We will assist Jamaica in COVID recovery by assisting in terms of the recovery efforts in Jamaica …”  With regard to Covid strategy in the US: “It’s time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day.”  Statements like these give credence to the charge of intellectual laziness and unwillingness to prepare.  It’s like she just says the first thing that comes into her mouth. 

            She will not be able to escape association with the Biden presidency.  She can hardly repudiate the former president.  First of all, there is a deep conviction among Democrats that he has been a good and “consequential” president.  The celebration of his presidency runs hand-in-hand with moving him off the stage.  Second, she has never voiced the slightest reservation or dissent regarding the actions of the Biden administration. 

The trouble is that in July 2024, one poll reported that 42 percent of Americans saw themselves as financially worse-off since January 2021 and 17 percent saw themselves as better-off.  Similarly, the movement of so many illegal immigrants from the border states to Democratic cities in the Northeast and Midwest turned the issue into a loser for Democrats.  Biden’s order of June 2024 restricting illegal immigration responded to that change.  However, she was placed in charge of figuring out a policy three years ago; now someone else in the administration finally produces one and it looks a lot like Donald Trump’s policy. 

            The Harris campaign is going to need to address these issues.  Just “prosecuting the case against Donald Trump” may not be enough if the Democratic candidate seems not up to the job.  Biden tried that. 

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[1] For a good summary of the criticism, see Bret Stephens, “Democrats Deserved a Contest, Not a Coronation,” NYT, 24 July 2024.