July 12, 2024
Biden Campaign Assesses VP Harris’ Viability As Democratic Nominee In New Poll
The Biden Campaign's new poll aims to evaluate whether Vice President Harris might perform better, worse than or the same as President Biden.
A new poll commissioned by the Biden campaign’s analytics team is quietly assessing Vice President Harris’ viability against Donald Trump in a head-to-head survey.
The Biden campaign’s evaluation aims to compare Harris’ performance to Biden’s current polling standings. Insiders told NBC News that the decision to conduct the new poll this week comes amid growing concerns within the Democratic party. Several key allies involved in the Biden campaign’s re-election efforts now view his chances of securing the Democratic nomination as slim to none. There’s a growing sentiment that he should step aside, potentially paving the way for Vice President Harris to secure the Democratic nomination.
One Biden campaign official said, “He needs to drop out,” while another person working on the re-election effort said, “No one involved in the effort thinks he has a path.” Their concerns stem from questions about Biden’s cognitive abilities, fundraising challenges, and polls showing declining support for the Biden campaign.
Despite these worries, other members of the Biden campaign remain optimistic. Campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon and manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez emphasized in a memo that Biden’s chances of winning are still possible. “Our internal data and public polling show the same thing: this remains a margin-of-error race in key battleground states,” they wrote. “The movement we have seen, while real, is not a sea-change in the state of the race — while some of this movement was from undecided voters to Trump, much of the movement was driven by historically Democratic constituencies moving to undecided.”
The new poll and others have prompted some within the party to question whether Vice President Harris might be better positioned to secure the Democratic nomination and face Trump in the general election. While some Democrats still see a path to victory for the Biden campaign, others believe that the goal of defeating Trump should take precedence over supporting Biden. As one person working to elect Biden pondered, “The question for me, and a lot of us, is: Who is the best person to beat Donald Trump?”
Recent polls have concerned some Democrats, including an AARP survey showing Biden trailing in Wisconsin, previously considered his most robust battleground state.