Stars ‘call for Biden to drop Harris for 2024’
Prominent Hollywood Democrats voice doubts about vice president remaining on the ticket
A GROUP of Hollywood Democrats including major stars has reportedly urged Joe Biden to drop Kamala Harris as running mate. CNN said the group voiced their doubts about the vice president in a Zoom call with Barbara Boxer, the former California senator.
Helen Hunt, the Oscar-winning actress, Ron Livingston, an actor, and Gabrielle Carteris, the Beverly Hills, 90210 star, were on the call. According to CNN, the group told Ms Boxer – who preceded Ms Harris in the Senate – that Ms Harris was a political liability.
Ms Harris’s polling ratings remain negative, with 49.5 per cent of voters disapproving of her record and only 41.9 per cent supporting her, according to the polling site Five Thirty Eight. It is not only Hollywood which has been l ukewarm about Ms Harris remaining on the ticket.
In January, Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator and former presidential candidate, said: “I really want to defer to what makes Biden comfortable on his team,” much to the annoyance of the vice president’s supporters.
“Pretty insulting”, one of Ms Harris’s supporters told CNN. Ms Warren’s spokesman said the remarks were a fumbling, unintentional attempt to avoid stepping on a campaign announcement from the president.
Hints of Hollywood’s disillusion with Ms Harris will ring alarm bells among Democrat strategists given the long association between the party and the entertainment industry, which digs deep to support t he Democrats.
Hollywood had hailed Ms Harris when she became the first woman and first American and South Asian American to become vice president.
But critics say she has failed to deliver on tackling the immigration crisis on the Mexican border. Her allies argue that the assignment was virtually impossible.
Ms Harris’s office has seen an unusually high turnover in staff, with one former aide accusing her of bullying in the normally supportive Washington Post.
Given that Joe Biden will be 81 should he, as expected, run again in 2024, the choice of his running mate will be particularly significant. “Right now, she seems to be an albatross,” one key Democratic activist told CNN.
In recent months there has been a concerted attempt to bolster Ms Harris’s standing, notably her highprofile appearance at the Munich security conference, underlining America’s strong support for Ukraine.
Cory Booker, the New Jersey senator, described Ms Harris as an invaluable asset, saying: “In some of the tough battleground states, she’s going to be pretty damn powerful, frankly.”