Vice President Kamala Harris is “the future of the Democratic Party,” the White House declared Wednesday as leading Democrats and their allies jockeyed for position in case 81-year-old president Biden steps aside.
Asked about Biden’s remark on the 2020 campaign trail that he would serve as a “transitional” president, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre referred to Harris as his political heir — and at one point called her “president.
“One of the reasons why he picked the vice president, President [sic] Kamala Harris, is because she is indeed the future of the party,” Jean-Pierre said at her regular briefing.
The 59-year-old Harris would run for the Democratic presidential nomination against a field of contenders including Governors. If Biden were to step aside, the potential 2024 Democratic candidates described by Rubin could include Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI).
A CNN poll on Tuesday indicated that nationwide, Harris led Trump by just 2 points while Biden trailed him by a six-point margin.
One Democratic critic told The Post: “She would cackle her way all the way to the Oval [Office] if she could.”
In the polls, Harris generally has lower favorability ratings than Biden — 38.7% for her vs. 39.8% for him in recent averages collected by RealClearPolitics as of this past Monday morning.
It was not known whether the president agrees with Jean-Pierre’s claim that he is still on the ticket, a would-be fact reiterated by campaign manager during a mid-day call to staff in which she said Biden and Harris are “still running” for November 5.
“There is no one I’d rather be in this battle with than all of you,” Biden said in his pep call — after the New York Times editorial board called on him to drop out Friday and several House Democrats openly predicted Tuesday his loss to Trump if he stays in the race.
“Let’s link arms. Let’s get this done — you, me, the vice president, together,” Biden said.
“We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead. We will fight, and we will win,” Harris told campaign staff.
Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) was the first House Democrat to say Biden should withdraw. “Let’s link arms. Biden set the tone by saying, “We can do this — you and me and vice president too.
Last year, a former White House official told Reuters that there is “a point of tension in their relationship is that I don’t think that the president sees her as somebody who takes anything off of his plate” due to a “fear of messing up.”
Biden, according to author Chris Whipple, described Biden viewing Harris as a “work in progress” in his book.
“Biden was annoyed,” the book says. “He hadn’t asked Harris to do anything he hadn’t done as vice president — and she’d begged him for the voting rights assignment.”
Biden picked Harris, the first female and second non-white vice president, as his running mate despite an acrimonious primary in which she blasted him for opposing federally mandated desegregation through busing students to different school districts.
