Advertisement

VP Harris Sets Record With Tie-Breaking Vote to Advance Judicial Nominee

Advertisement

OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


Vice President Kamala Harris shattered a record that had stood in the U.S. Senate since the earliest days of the republic.

By casting a vote to break a 50-50 deadlock and advance the nomination of Loren AliKhan for a U.S. district judge position, Harris exceeded the 191-year-old record of 31 tie-breaking votes set by John C. Calhoun, who served as vice president from 1825 to 1832 under Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) sided with Republicans in voting against invoking cloture, the Daily Wire reported.

“Today is historic,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) noted after the vote. “Vice President Harris has just cast her 32nd tie-breaking vote, the most tiebreakers ever. I join all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle thanking the vice president for her leadership and for making the work of the Senate possible.”

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and his VP are both suffering low approval ratings, with Harris even worse than her boss.

According to a November NBC News survey, Biden is losing to former President Donald Trump for the first time in his presidency, while Harris’s approval rating sank below 30 percent.

Just 40 percent of respondents approve of the job Biden is doing, while just 29 percent approve of Harris, making her the least-popular vice president in the modern era.

Advertisement

“Additionally, when asked whether they would vote for a Republican candidate or Biden in the 2024 election, the current president lags at 37% to 48%,” Just the News reported, citing the survey. “When specifically asked about whether they would vote for Trump or Biden, 46% of voters said Trump while 44% said Biden, per the poll.”

NBC political correspondent Steve Kornacki cited the shocking survey during a segment on Sunday with the network.

He noted that while Biden has long held a “likeability” advantage over Trump, the latest survey also shows the two men tied in that category.

“The gap is gone. Thirty-six percent positive on both and actually Biden, one point more negative than Trump. That’s been a significant advantage for Biden. Our poll says that advantage, at least for now, may be gone,” Kornacki noted.

In addition, the political correspondent said that, according to the survey, just 40 percent of respondents gave Biden positive job approval, which is also the lowest number in the span of the current president’s term.

And just 30 percent of self-identifying Independents give Biden positive job approval ratings.

“If you take a look here by party, I think it’s significant for two reasons: one, Independents, obviously, more than two to one disapprove. You don’t want to be there as an incumbent president. But I think equally significant, no surprise, 7% of Republicans approve of Joe Biden, job performance, but three times as many Democrats, 21%, that’s more than one in five, say they disapprove. You need much more unified support in your own party if you’re going to have a successful reelection campaign,” Kornacki said.

While younger voters tend to skew more liberal, the latest NBC poll found that voters ages 18-24 were actually leaning toward Trump, 46-42 percent.

Advertisement

“The youngest voters in the 2020 election were Biden +28,” Kornacki said. “This could be a massive sea change.”

Other recent surveys show Trump moving past Biden in the key swing states.

According to a new PRRI Research/Ipsos survey, Biden edged Trump in a national two-person race, 48–46 percent, with 6 percent saying they did not prefer either candidate, according to Breitbart News in late October.

“However, Trump has a clear advantage over Biden in key swing states such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, leading Biden by a difference of six points—49 percent to the 80-year-old’s 43 percent,” the outlet added, citing the survey’s results.

Previous surveys have also shown Trump leading Biden in those crucial states.

Trending Around the Web Now