Three-quarters of voters disapprove of Vice President Kamala Harris's handling of the southern border crisis, according to a nationwide poll.
President Joe Biden made Harris the "border czar" of his administration in March. Now, a majority of voters—75 percent—have rated her handling of the response "poor." The judgment did not change with political affiliation: Fifty-five percent of Democrats and 94 percent of Republicans agree with that assessment. Slightly more Democrats participated in the poll than Republicans, and slightly more women participated than men. The poll, conducted by the Convention of States Action and the Trafalgar Group, surveyed more than 1,000 likely general election voters.
More than 1.5 million migrants have crossed the southern border in 2021, with some months marking decades-long highs in immigration. Following the first influx of migrants in March, Harris faced backlash for laughing off reporters' questions about the Biden administration's border response. During an interview in June with NBC's Lester Holt, she falsely claimed she had "been to the border." When Holt corrected her by noting she had not made a visit, Harris replied, "I—and I haven't been to Europe. And I mean, I don't—I don't understand the point that you're making."
Harris tried to recoup her lost public credibility and visited the border shortly after.
The Biden administration has struggled to stem the tide of increased immigration as it has conveyed a more permissive border stance and jettisoned Trump-era border policies. The administration gutted Title 42, which the former administration used to shut down the border during the coronavirus pandemic, and is trying to end the "Remain in Mexico" program, which keeps asylum seekers outside the United States until their court hearing. Biden reached the lowest job approval rating of his term—38 percent—on Wednesday, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll.
A majority of Americans polled by the Trafalgar Group in July also said Harris was not ready to be president. The Trafalgar Group is best known for accurately predicting the 2016 presidential election. The group inaccurately predicted the results of the 2020 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump.