OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama has no plans to run for president in 2024, but that hasn’t stopped many voters from wanting her to make a run for the White House.
The vast majority of voters who cast a ballot for Joe Biden in 2020 now want Michelle Obama to run in his place and would vote for her this year, according to a new survey.
Newsweek reports that a Redfield and Wilton Strategies poll of 1,500 U.S. adults conducted exclusively for the outlet found that “46 percent of eligible voters would support the attorney and wife of former President Barack Obama if she decided to run for the White House.”
Upon further examination of the results, the data reveals that 75 percent of those who voted for Biden in the last election would support Michelle Obama, along with 21 percent of those who supported Republican Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted before Biden secured the 2024 Democratic nomination on Tuesday, following resounding primary victories in Georgia, Mississippi, and Washington. But the survey results come amid ongoing concerns about the 81-year-old’s reelection prospects.
Most national polling has Biden trailing Trump now, often outside polling margins of error, while his approval rating has tanked to a dismal 37 percent.
The poll conducted for Newsweek, meanwhile, found that nearly half, or 45 percent, of respondents supported Biden’s ending his reelection campaign.
Meanwhile, a new op-ed and analysis published by the Washington Post over the weekend called on failed, unpopular Vice President Kamala Harris to step aside “for the good of the country” and allow Biden to name a veep successor ahead of the 2024 election.
WaPo columnist Kathleen Parker, who pointed out that she made the same call in 2008 when then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin became GOP nominee Sen. John McCain’s running mate, initially recalled Biden’s commitment to naming a woman as a running mate when he stepped into the contest in 2020.
Parker then went on to praise Harris for her past accomplishments and wrote that, as a black American with Asian ancestry, she appeared to check off several Democrat Party boxes in terms of an ‘ideal’ candidate after she failed to gain any traction with her own presidential bid.
“Harris ended her campaign in December 2019, citing a lack of financial resources. Next thing we knew, she was moving into the Naval Observatory. She was a colossal failure as border czar, a position she held briefly, and otherwise seemed to have gone undercover,” Parker wrote.
“Whatever the reasons, it has seemed that Harris’s role was to be quiet, lest she embarrass her boss with her sometimes inane, rambling remarks and a laugh that erupts from nowhere about nothing obvious to others. I do, however, relish the thought of her face-to-face with Vladimir Putin and suddenly cackling at a linchpin moment during nuclear arms discussions,” the columnist continued.
The Kamala conundrum boils down to this: She was chosen because of her race and gender, a combination seen as providing job security, Parker wrote. However, now that she has become a liability to the Democratic ticket, Biden faces a dilemma, she says: He cannot dismiss her, as it risks alienating his base.
Despite what Parker described as Biden’s relatively successful State of the Union address, concerns persist over his declining mental faculties and increasing physical frailty.
“Every honest person knows he’s not in top form. A recent New York Times poll found that 73 percent of registered voters believe Biden is too old to be the nation’s top executive. This includes 61 percent of those who voted for him in 2020,” she wrote.
Parker then reflected on Harris’ dismal polling numbers, noting that a recent FiveThirtyEight survey analysis found her approval at around 37 percent, which is horrid for either a VP or a president.
“Harris could provide her own reasons for moving on. Perhaps she and Biden could a cut a deal for her to become the next attorney general — if he’s reelected. Biden then could tap someone else with executive experience who could reassure voters that the next vice president would be ready to take the reins should events require it. Democrats and Republicans alike would be relieved,” Parker said.
She concluded: “Please, Madame Vice President, do it for your country.”
