President Joe Biden‘s rare appearances on the campaign trail, which have created political problems for Vice President Kamala Harris, have reminded Democrats why he was a poor standard-bearer.
Polls find that the race between Harris and former President Donald Trump is within the margin of error in the seven battleground states that will decide next week’s contest. That means any political misstep, including Biden’s recent “garbage” remark, could provide an undecided voter with an excuse to vote for their opponent or not cast a ballot at all.
Biden blasted Hinchcliffe’s Puerto Rico joke, arguing that the “only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.” His comment, made during a campaign call with Latino advocacy organization Voto Latino at the White House, came as Harris stepped onto a platform set up at the nearby Ellipse for her closing arguments address.
Despite Biden clarifying that he was calling Tony Hinchcliffe “garbage,” after the comedian described Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last weekend, he cast a shadow over Harris’s address.
It was exactly a week since he last overshadowed her on the campaign trail, telling Democrats in New Hampshire the party needs to “politically lock [Trump] up” and “lock him out.” Prior to that, he undercut her complaints about Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) not taking her phone call amid hurricane preparations by praising him, and before that, he donned a “Trump 2024” hat during a Sept. 11 anniversary event.
But, more broadly, Biden has cast a shadow over Harris’s campaign as she contends with being the vice president to an unpopular president and has been repeatedly asked how her administration would be different, at first being unable to answer the question. Biden’s average approval rating is net negative 15.5 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics.
“I have been honored to serve as Joe Biden’s vice president,” Harris said at the Ellipse. “But I will bring my own experiences and ideas to the Oval Office.”
She added, “My presidency will be different because the challenges we face are different. Our top priority as a nation four years ago was to end the pandemic and rescue the economy. Now our biggest challenge is to lower costs.”
Democratic strategist Stefan Hankin could not make an argument that Biden is “helping” Harris, though he is “trying,” saying his party does not regret dumping the president as its nominee this summer.
“I think it’s fair to say he’s not on his ‘A’ game anymore and why he’s not the candidate anymore,” Hankin told the Washington Examiner. “I think he wouldn’t be able to be running the schedule that Harris is running right now and hopping from swing state to swing state and doing all these things and holding the rally last night. So, yeah, no, I got no regrets.”
Hankin conceded there is always “difficulty” running for president as vice president because of the “tricky balancing act” and the election is “obviously in the home stretch” where “every group could be the difference between winning and losing.”
“There’s always this, ‘Hey, I want to take credit for all the good and step away from the bad, but I can’t really talk badly about my current boss because that just makes us all look bad,’” he said. “I think she could have gotten to the answer of what would be different quicker, but I think she’s doing a pretty good job with it now.”
For retired Colby College American government professor Sandy Maisel, Harris had to grapple, too, with “history and loyalty.”
“If Kamala wins, she will owe her presidency to Joe Biden, because she never would’ve had the nomination without a contest were it not for his very quick endorsement,” Maisel told the Washington Examiner.
Democrats remain adamant Biden wants Harris to win, despite his mistakes and desire to keep campaigning for her amid reports the vice president’s aides do not want him to. When asked why Biden was not at the Ellipse Tuesday, for example, watching her address on a TV and not even from the Truman balcony, he told reporters the rally was “for her.”
“What kind of legacy would he leave if his own vice president goes down to defeat?” Democratic strategist Garry South told the Washington Examiner. “Biden has a long history of verbal gaffes, this is nothing new for him. But he’s not running, Harris is — and Trump.”
South underscored the comparison between Biden’s comment and those of Trump and his supporters, particularly at the Madison Square Garden rally, which included condemning Harris as the “antichrist” and denouncing her aides as “pimps.”
Democratic strategist Christopher Hahn simply downplayed Biden’s importance to the 2024 election now that he is no longer the nominee.
“Biden is not overly relevant to the election at this point,” Hahn told the Washington Examiner.
George Mason University political science professor Jeremy Mayer spoke more plainly in that Biden is a “huge liability for Harris.”
“If he does media, and is at all incompetent or makes misstatements, it reminds voters of one weakness that Trump keeps hammering on,” Mayer told the Washington Examiner. “Harris was one of his biggest defenders during the last two years when evidence of his growing incapacity mounted. She’s not gone into detail about any doubts she might have had during that period.”
To that end, Harris told NBC last week that she has been candid regarding concerns about Biden’s age and mental acuity, reiterating that he had a “bad debate” this summer.
“Also, if he says something off message, as with the garbage comment, he takes the spotlight away from her and her campaign team, forces them to talk about that and not what they wanted to talk about,” Mayer, the professor, said.
Harris and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), her running mate, were required to respond to Biden’s garbage comments on Wednesday. Harris told reporters she “strongly” disagrees with “any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” and that she and Biden spoke on Tuesday after her address.
“As you heard in my speech last night and continuously throughout my career, I believe that the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not, and as president of the United States, I will be a president for all Americans, whether you vote for me or not,” she said at Joint Base Andrews before campaign events in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
With Biden expected to be in Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state, on Friday and Saturday, Mayer encouraged the Harris campaign to beg Biden aides “to keep him in the basement as much as humanly possible.”
“They don’t want Biden to get in front of a camera or microphone in this last week. He showed why this week,” he said. “From the perspective of the Harris campaign, the baton has been passed, and it’s time for the first lap runner, Biden, to hit the showers, and not do a post race press conference.”
The White House dismissed the idea that Biden would change his schedule, saying he “looks forward to being out there, speaking directly to the American people, talking about what we’ve been able to do [during] almost four years of this administration.”
“Just to clarify, he was not calling Trump supporters garbage,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday.
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But Northeastern University Costas Panagopoulos agreed that “the wisest course of action” for Biden is to concentrate on his presidential duties and delegate the campaign to Harris and other surrogates.
“Missteps at this point can be very costly,” Panagopoulos told the Washington Examiner. “There’s no good reason to risk any major gaffes right now that could throw the Harris campaign off its messaging targets.”
