Vice President Kamala Harris has attempted to distance herself from some key weaknesses of President Joe Biden‘s tenure, but a new poll shows those attempts do not appear to be working.
A CBS News poll released on Sunday shows that most registered voters, 83%, believe Harris’s policies will be entirely or mostly the same as Biden’s, with 19% saying entirely the same and 64% saying mostly the same.
Harris has yet to give an extensive list of her policies but has offered an economic policy to counter so-called price-gouging, which critics have said is little more than price controls. With Harris’s few established policies since launching her 2024 White House bid, more than a third of voters in the survey said they do not know what she stands for.
The poll indicated 36% of registered voters do not believe Harris has made clear what she stands for, with 44% of independent voters coming to that conclusion. When asked if they know what former President Donald Trump stands for, only 14% of registered voters said he had not made it clear.
Harris has also been unable to move away from blame for the economy or border amid her role as vice president, according to the poll.
With the economy, 24% of voters said they believe she has had “a lot” of impact on the economy as vice president and 33% said they believe she has had some impact on the economy. Among independents, 22% said she had “a lot” of impact on the economy, along with 28% who said she had some impact on the economy.
Notably, Harris cast the tiebreaking vote approving Biden’s $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act that Republicans point to as a key driver of inflation.
When asked if they believe grocery prices will go up or down should Harris win, 48% of voters, including 50% of independents, said they believe prices will go up. Only 22% of voters, including 17% of independents, said they believe prices will go down under a Harris administration, while 30% of voters, including 33% of independents, said they believe there will be no change. A plurality of voters and independents, 42% and 41%, respectively, said they believe grocery prices will go down under a second Trump administration.
With the border, 31% of voters said Harris had “a lot” of impact on the current policy, while 28% said she had some impact on the current border situation as vice president. Independents largely mirrored the overall voter totals, with 33% saying she had “a lot” of impact on the border, compared to 23% who believe she had some. Harris was appointed by Biden to handle some matters related to the southern border and immigration in 2021.
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While Harris has failed to separate herself from Biden on individual issues, she is leading Trump in head-to-head polling, 51%-48%, though Trump holds a narrow 50%-49% lead with independents.
The poll comes ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where Democrats will make their pitch for four years of Harris as president. The convention will continue through Thursday evening, when Harris will accept the party’s nomination.
