Kamala Harris Viewed Unfavorably Among 50 Percent of American Voters: NBC News Poll

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during National Small Business Week in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington on May 1, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

Vice President Kamala Harris’ favorability among Americans has plummeted to a record low, according to a new NBC News survey.

The poll (pdf), published June 26, was conducted among 1,000 registered voters between June 16 to June 20 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.10 percent.

It found that nearly half of respondents, approximately 49 percent, have a very negative or somewhat negative view of Harris while just 32 percent have a very positive or somewhat positive view of the vice president.

Those favorability results, a -17 net rating, are the lowest for a vice president in the history of the NBC News poll, according to the publication.

As an example, in October 2019, 38 percent of respondents had a negative view of then-Vice President Mike Pence, Harris’ predecessor, compared to 34 percent of those surveyed who had a positive view of Pence.

Pence entered the Republican Presidential candidate race for 2024 earlier this month.

Prior to that, in December 2020, a survey of registered voters found that 34 percent had a positive view of then-Vice President Joe Biden while 33 percent had a negative view, according to NBC News.

In May 2003, former VP Dick Cheney received a positive view among 47 percent of registered voters compared to 24 percent who viewed him negatively.

The findings of NBC’s poll are similar to those seen in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate, which found that Harris has an average -15.6 percent unfavorable rating, placing her far ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (-6.6 percent), who is also vying for the White House in 2024, and Biden, who has an unfavourability rating of -13.7, according to RealClearPolitics.

Vice President Kamala Harris applauds as President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the US Capitol in Washington, on Feb. 7, 2023. (Jacquelyn Martin/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

‘Different Filter, Focus’ on Harris

Elsewhere, Harris isn’t polling well among Democrats either, according to the latest Fox News national survey of registered voters.

That survey was conducted between April 21–24 among 1,004 randomly selected registered voters nationwide under the joint direction of Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

It found that nearly three-quarters of Democrats (73 percent) approved of Harris’ job performance, while just 36 percent of independents approve and 15 percent of Republicans approve.

Overall, that survey found that 43 percent of voters approve of the job Harris is doing in office while more than half, approximately 54 percent, disapprove, down from her 40 percent approval rate in June 2021.

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley suggested in a Fox interview earlier this month that voters are acutely aware that Harris may well be the next president at a time of extreme uncertainty in the United States.

“We can’t continue down this path. And let’s be very clear if they think it’s going to be President Biden, a vote for President Biden, it’s actually a vote for President Harris,” Haley said.

“We are running against Kamala Harris. Make no bones about it. The New York Times knows it. Every liberal knows it. They know that it’s Kamala Harris that’s going to end up being president of the United States if Joe Biden wins this election,” she added.

Former President Donald J. Trump speaks during the Faith and Freedom Road to Majority conference at Hilton in Washington on June 24, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

White House Hoping to Revive Harris’s Image

The latest poll results come as White House officials are reportedly hard at work trying to revive Harris’ public image after she was widely criticized last year for failing to visit the U.S.–Mexico border at a time when illegal immigration surged to unprecedented levels.

Reports also emerged last year of “infighting and low morale” in Harris’ office—although she later dismissed those reports—and experts have repeatedly raised concerns about the vice president’s noticeable absence from the spotlight during her time in the role.

White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients told Axios on Monday that he meets with Harris on a weekly basis to go over her policy ideas and leadership.

“If you think about what matters to the American people, it’s what the Vice President is actually doing and when the American people see her in action every day … I think the enthusiasm and energy is palpable,” Zients said.

“We just need to make sure that we do a good job of exposing” her to the American public, he added.

Elsewhere, NBC’s poll found that former President Donald Trump is leading among his GOP rivals in the 2024 race.

Among Republican voters who were asked who they would vote for if the GOP primary for president was being held today, 51 percent said Trump would be their first choice, followed by 22 percent who would vote for DeSantis.

Just 7 percent of Republican voters said they would vote for Pence.

In a race between Biden and Trump, 49 percent of respondents polled by NBC said they would vote for Biden while 45 percent said they would vote for the former president.