Nearly 60 per cent of voters have unfavourable opinion of Kamala Harris, poll finds

Dipping numbers come after several members of staff announce departures from vice president’s office

Vice President Kamala Harris is seeing continued low approval ratings amid negative press coverage and staffers leaving her office.

According to conservative polling company Rasmussen, more than half of voters have a negative view of Ms Harris and they don’t believe she’s got what it takes to take up the mantle from President Joe Biden at this time.

The poll finds that 39 per cent of voters have a favourable view of the vice president, with 19 per cent saying their opinion about her is very favourable.

It’s a dip compared to August when 41 per cent had a favourable view of her. A majority of voters, 57 per cent, now have an unfavourable view of her, Rasmussen reported. Half of voters say their view is very unfavourable.

The poll included 1,000 likely voters and was conducted between 5 and 6 December, with a margin of error of three percentage points.

The new poll numbers come after Ms Harris’ chief spokesperson, Symone Sanders, announced that she would be leaving the vice president’s office.

Director of press operations Peter Velz and deputy director of public engagement Vince Evans also recently announced that they were leaving.

The communications director for Ms Harris, Ashley Eitenne, notified the office of her departure last month. The announcement came days after CNN reported that an “exhausted stalemate” existed between the offices of Mr Biden and Ms Harris.

“It’s hard to miss the specific energy that the White House brings to defend a white man, knowing that Kamala Harris has spent almost a year taking a lot of the hits that the West Wing didn’t want to take themselves,” a former aide to Ms Harris told CNN in November.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the staff exodus was “natural” and that senior members of the administration may just want to get more sleep.

“Working in the first year of a White House is exciting and rewarding but it’s also gruelling and exhausting,” Ms Psaki said last week. “If you look at past precedent, it’s natural for staffers who have thrown their heart and soul into a job to be ready to move on to a new challenge after a few years, and that is applicable to many of these individuals. It’s also an opportunity, as it is in any White House, to bring in new faces, new voices and new perspectives.”

“It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,” a pre-White House aide to Ms Harris told The Washington Post. “With Kamala, you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you’re constantly sort of propping up a bully and it’s not really clear why.”

Sean Clegg, a partner at the political consultancy firm Bearstar Strategies, which has worked with Ms Harris, told The Post she’s a tough boss but not abusive.

“I’ve never had an experience in my long history with Kamala, where I felt like she was unfair,” he said. “Has she called bulls***? Yes. And does that make people uncomfortable sometimes? Yes. But if she were a man with her management style, she would have a TV show called The Apprentice.”