Democrats prop up Harris, Clinton for 2024 if Biden doesn’t run: poll

Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton trails only Vice President Harris in a hypothetical 2024 Democratic primary survey without President Biden, topping a field that includes both new names and familiar faces.

In the poll of 2,194 people, Harris topped a Democratic field without Biden with 32 percent support. Clinton, who has run for president twice, garnered 20 percent support in the survey, which had a 3 percentage point margin of error.

The two front-runners were trailed by the likes of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) at 11, 10 and 8 percent, respectively. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former Georgia gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams were the only other potential Democratic candidates to receive more than 4 percent support in the poll.

Biden is thought to be preparing to launch his reelection campaign in the coming weeks, using his State of the Union address on as a launch pad. But polling has shown that Democratic voters are tepid in their support of Biden, with many preferring another candidate to be the party’s nominee in 2024.

Harris’s position at the top of the survey — which was conducted between Feb. 3 and Feb. 6 by the polling firm Premise — comes as she faces approval ratings that are even lower than the president’s, according to an aggregation of polling from FiveThirtyEight, which gives her an approval rating of 39 percent to Biden’s nearly 43 percent.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the former Speaker, said on CNN after Biden’s State of the Union on Tuesday that she doesn’t think any other Democrats will decide to challenge Biden if he runs again.

“I hope he runs. I’m for him if he runs. I know that the Democrats will fully embrace him,” Pelosi said. “If he runs, it’s over.”