(DailyVantage.com) – Despite the rush of excitement that greeted Vice President Kamala Harris’ entry into the 2024 presidential race, some Democrat lawmakers and strategists are privately expressing concerns that the unvetted and untested candidate may not be up to the job of defeating Donald Trump in November.
One Democrat senator told The Hill that some lawmakers were concerned about whether Harris could appeal to working-class voters in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
The senator noted Harris’ poor performance in the 2020 presidential election which caused her to drop out two months before the Iowa caucus.
The senator said Harris was not “a great candidate” and was nowhere near the political campaigner that Joe Biden was “in his prime.”
The senator added despite the thousands of people working on her campaign, the vice president’s path to victory would not be easy.
While Harris has closed the gap that Trump opened up after Biden’s disastrous debate performance in late June, the race is still polling within the margin of error. Real Clear Politics national polling average gave Harris a 0.2-point edge over Trump as of August 4, with Harris leading in four of the last five national polls.
A Democrat strategist who works with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders told The Hill that it remained unclear if Vice President Harris would be a stronger candidate than Joe Biden by Election Day, especially since Harris is more known for defending abortion rights than tackling economic issues during her time as vice president.
The senator told The Hill that with only three months before the November election, Harris does not have much time to make the case to voters in the battleground states she needs to win in the Electoral College.
The lawmaker insisted that the vice president was aware of the challenge she faced in appealing to voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
A Pennsylvania Democrat strategist noted that, unlike President Biden, Vice President Harris has no special relationship with the state. The strategist told The Hill that it was surprising how few relationships Harris had developed in Pennsylvania, suggesting that a politician from California may as well be from a foreign country.
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