There isn’t a whole lot of good news in this POLITICO/Morning Consult poll for Democrats, but they sure are trying to find any silver lining that they possibly can.

The point of the poll was to gauge how these 3,996 registered voters viewed Kamala Harris, although the poll also asked some basic questions about the state of the general election as well. In writing this up, POLITICO buried the lede just slightly:

The POLITICO | Morning Consult poll shows Biden and Trump tied at 45 percent apiece (a subsequent Morning Consult tracking poll has Biden up on Trump by 1 percentage point. Democrats have started to deploy tens of millions of dollars in TV ads to tout the administration’s accomplishments.

Here’s what POLITICO isn’t saying. The poll that has Biden and Trump tied (with a margin of error of 2 percent) was taken on May 28-29, right before the verdict in the Manhattan trial (the verdict was announced on May 30th). That “subsequent” poll that has Biden up by 1 point? That was taken June 7-9, well AFTER the verdict. So, even after the verdict which has Democrats using the words “convicted felon” every two seconds, Biden is up ONE point in a poll with a margin of error of… wait for it… ONE point. In other words, even after the Democrats have shot their proverbial wad on lawfare, the two candidates are still in a statistical tie. That should tell Democrats just how badly this race is going for them, but as we all know, Biden doesn’t believe the polls.

But the focus of this particular poll was Kamala Harris. I wonder if Joe Biden will believe THESE poll numbers about his vice president?

The POLITICO/Morning consult poll reveals that only a third of voters think it’s likely Harris would win an election were she to become the Democratic nominee, and just three of five Democrats believe she would prevail. A quarter of independents think she would win.

That skepticism extends to her potential future role as the head of her party. Forty-two percent of voters described her as a strong leader, including three-quarters of Democrats but only a third of independents.

The poll shows that Harris shares the same poor ratings as Biden. Both are well underwater, Biden at 43 percent favorable and 54 unfavorable, Harris at 42 percent favorable and 52 percent unfavorable.

Harris faces pessimism about her future role in the party from a bloc of Democrats and a far larger share of independents. The poll found that a majority of voters don’t view Harris as a strong leader (48 percent to 42 percent). Nor do they see her as trustworthy (46 percent to 43 percent).

Where does Kamala Harris do well? In the social justice causes, naturally. But not anywhere else.

She performed relatively well on issues like health care, gender inequality and LGBTQ+ rights, but is well below a majority in terms of how much voters trust her to handle immigration (40 percent), relations with China (37 percent) and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (35 percent).

And the Democrat strategists are apparently living in a state of denial.

Although Harris’ appeal is tied up with Biden’s, some negative perceptions of her that appear across the poll crystallized in the early months of their tenure, according to a half-dozen Democratic advisers who reviewed portions of the survey. Several said Harris has a rare chance — given the number of eyeballs on her — in the coming months to start ameliorating the concerns.

“The vice president has the opportunity to reset any impressions about her and rebrand herself in a debate, at the convention and in the stretch run of the campaign,” said Fernand Amandi, a strategist and pollster in Florida who worked for both of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns. “Those will be the opportunities where America, as a nation, will be able to take a second look at her and see if they see a future president, or, someone who is just another potential presidential candidate.”

Um, how many times has Kamala Harris been “reintroduced,” “reimagined,” or “remade” at this point? There is no fixing the perceptions for her that currently exist, especially when THIS SAME POLL points out that Harris has universal name recognition, with only two percent claiming they had never heard of her. Only an additional five percent in this poll have “no opinion” of Kamala Harris. This means that 93 percent of the polling group has an opinion on the vice president, and there is NOTHING she can do to change that.

To further prove the point, when Kamala Harris is listed as a potential replacement for Joe Biden, amid a list of other Democrats, guess who wins?

Look at how that question is worded. Joe Biden will NOT be running for president in 2028. There is zero guarantee the man will even be alive in 2028! This was a way for pollsters to ask “who should replace Biden” without actually saying “who should replace Biden.” Kamala Harris has a whole whopping 21 percent. But the clear winner is “don’t know/no opinion,” and if you combine that number with “someone else,” you get 48 percent of the voters polled not wanting any of the people on this list. Now, those numbers could change, especially for potential candidates like Josh Shapiro (current governor of Pennsylvania) who don’t have strong national name recognition. But, as we have said often, the Democrat bench is THIN. If Joe Biden is physically/obviously incapable of standing for election, and if Democrats could get Kamala Harris out of the running, there is no one standing in the wings who could coast to an easy victory.

Why run this poll? To see if Kamala Harris has a political future. But you don’t need a crystal ball to tell you that no one is excited about her. So, cue the excuses!

“She’s done an admirable job on reproductive health and issues important to the Black community and related to youth. But at the same time, she’s falling into the same spot that many vice presidents fall into, which is that she doesn’t have a very public role outside of her lane,” said RL Miller, a climate activist and outgoing member of the Democratic National Committee from California. “People don’t associate her with issues like foreign policy, which is so important these days. She isn’t being credited with the larger international and domestic work.”

Miller describes herself as a “longtime fan of Kamala Harris,” and said the vice president would be her first choice “if God forbid something were to happen to Biden.” But, Miller added, “I am afraid Democrats have internalized the Hillary Clinton lesson: That a woman can’t win. And I think it’s sad.”

Uh, no, that isn’t it. Kamala Harris is just a lousy politician and has shown herself to be as off-putting as Hillary Clinton. She also comes across as inane and insincere.

Yeah, there’s a reason why Kamala Harris isn’t drawing supporters, and it isn’t because “she’s a woman.” She’s just BAD at politics, but has been failing up ever since she started. No amount of “rebranding” is going to change that. You’re stuck with her, and with the old man, Democrats. And unfortunately, for at least the next five months, we’re all stuck with them, too.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click