Monday on MSNBC, NBC News national political correspondent Steve Kornacki said he did not think there would be a significant improvement for Vice President Kamala Harris over President Joe Biden against former President Donald Trump.
On Sunday, Biden announced he was stepping aside from the presidential race and endorsed Harris.
According to Kornacki, the expectation that Harris would perform better than Biden was based on “hope” more than it was on what the numbers offered.
“The short answer is not really any better,” Kornacki said of Harris’ chances. “Take a look at this — this is the average of all the polls you’re talking about since the debate that tested Kamala Harris against Donald Trump: Trump 47%, Harris 46%. In the same set of polls, when it was Joe Biden, 47% for Trump and 45% for Biden. The Democratic number, on average, goes up from 45 [percent] to 46. I think it underscores for Democrats — they view this move as something that’s going to improve their chances in the general election. That is based more on hope than it is on the numbers right now.”
“You go another level deep in this, and you’ve got the favorable-unfavorable,” he continued. “The basic impression people have of these candidates here. For Joe Biden, these numbers have looked like this for a long time. Very, very bad numbers — 36% favorable, 57% unfavorable. Again, in an average of polls over the last month. What’s the difference with Kamala Harris? Again, not much of a difference. From 36% favorable to 38%, 57% unfavorable down to 52%. That’s still a majority of voters saying they have an unfavorable impression of Kamala Harris.”
“Throw up Donald Trump’s numbers for comparison — he’s at 41% favorable, 55% unfavorable,” Kornacki added. “All three of these figures, with a majority of voters saying that they are unfavorably impressed by them. So, again, from the Democratic standpoint here, they think Harris being reintroduced as a presidential candidate, getting a different look, they think these numbers can improve for her, both in the favorables and in the horse race against Trump. But we don’t know. As you say, she has not really been tested. Her name never got to a primary ballot in 2020. She dropped out a couple of months before that. So, see how it goes over. Democrats hope these numbers will improve. There’s also a possibility they don’t. There’s also a possibility this rollout does not go well.”
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