Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee after incumbent President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, has a lot of work in front of her if she wants to wrest swings states out of the Trump column in November’s general election.
With only a little over a hundred days left until the big day, Harris must build a campaign team that will help her capitalize on Biden’s July 21st endorsement to overcome the substantial advantage of momentum and experience that the Trump campaign has over her.
Harris, who previously served as the Attorney General of California before becoming a U.S. Senator from that state, has already secured the backing of several would-be challengers and big donors. She still faces the difficult challenge of securing the electors in the purple states that broke for Biden in the 2020 election—if she does not, she doesn’t have a prayer of winning the race.
One of the big question marks in the upcoming campaign is Georgia, whose controversial 2020 election saw Biden win in a squeaker. A recent poll from the Peach state shows Harris trailing Trump by five points, with likely voters breaking 51% for Trump vs. 46% for Harris. In that same poll, one percent of those surveyed said that they intended to vote for a candidate nominated by a third party, and a further two percent reported being currently undecided.
The only bright light for Harris in that poll is that she did better than her boss among the same group of voters. While she polls higher than Biden among registered Democrats and among black voters, she is nowhere near as well liked—only 42 percent of respondents reported having a positive view of Harris, while 53 percent see her in an unfavorable light.
The real game against Trump, though, will be fought over the independent vote, and in that field she trails the former President by a full eleven points.
