Kamala Harris’s approval rating worse than Dick Cheney’s, poll finds Voters currently have a dimmer view of the first female veep than of the the vice president who once shot a man in the face
by Andrew Feinberg
Monday 08 November 2021 20:13
Less than a year into the Biden administration’s tenure, the first Black woman to hold America’s second-highest office is less popular than a predecessor who once famously shot a hunting companion in the face.
According to a new poll commissioned by USA Today and carried out by Suffolk University, only 28 per cent of Americans approve of how Vice President Kamala Harris has performed in the position voters elected to her one year ago.
That’s a full 10 points lower than the approval rating for President Joe Biden, according to the same poll.
Worse yet for Ms Harris, the poll shows that a majority of Americans — 51 per cent — say they disapprove of the job she’s done as vice president.
Ms Harris’ 28 per cent approval rating is a record low for a modern vice president, and goes even lower than the 30 per cent, according to Gallup tracking polls, who in 2008 said they approved of the performance in office of Vice President Dick Cheney.
The former vice president, a major architect of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, reached that previous record-low polling threshold after years of US casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He was also widely mocked after a February 2006 incident in which Mr. Cheney, who was hunting quail, accidentally discharged a shotgun into the face and upper torso of a Texas attorney called Harry Whittington.
While Mr Cheney’s lowest approval ratings came towards the end of his two terms as George W Bush’s vice president, Ms Harris’ have gone lower less than 10 months after she and Mr. Biden took their oaths of office.
The vice president’s dismal approval numbers come after having taken on a portfolio of hot-button issues, including voting rights and the “root causes” of illegal immigration, without much visible progress thus far on either.
The Vice President’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent.