PolitiFact Refutes Kamala Harris’ Assertion of ‘Strong Approval Ratings’: ‘Our Rating: False’

The fact-checking organization PolitiFact deemed Vice President Kamala Harris’ statement about certain polls showing high approval ratings for her as inaccurate.

“Among more than 100 publicly released polls dating to October 2021, none shows Vice President Kamala Harris with approval ratings that outweigh disapproval ratings,” the fact checker noted in support of its rating.

During an ABC News interview held on July 31, the vice president attracted attention by making a bold assertion aimed at addressing her declining poll figures.

Reporter Linsey Davis raised inquiries about the vice president’s decreasing poll ratings in the ABC interview.

“There are reports that say that you have the lowest approval rating of any vice president,” Ms. Davis said. “I’m curious, how much role, if any, (do) you feel race and gender play in that?”

The vice president aimed to counter that storyline.

“Well, there are polls that also say I have great approval ratings,” Harris responded. “I think the point that has to be made is that there are attempts to create distractions away from the accomplishments of our administration.”

As per respected polling aggregation website FiveThirtyEight, Vice President Harris’ recent approval ratings stand at an average of 12 points below the waterline. This indicates that her disapproval ratings consistently exceed her approval ratings.

To be precise, FiveThirtyEight’s data highlights an average approval rating of 39.7 percent for Harris, contrasted with a disapproval rate of 52.3 percent, culminating in a net disapproval margin of 12.6 percentage points.

Furthermore, recent polls conducted by various media entities and universities corroborate FiveThirtyEight’s findings, further illustrating higher disapproval rates compared to approval rates for the Vice President.

PolitiFact’s scrutiny of the data led them to classify Vice President Kamala Harris’ assertion of having “great approval ratings” as False. They concluded that the evidence does not substantiate her statement.

Additional sources, such as Newsweek, also evaluated the Vice President’s claims. Their analysis, in line with PolitiFact’s conclusions, highlighted that Harris’ gap between approval and disapproval was narrower than that of President Biden.

FiveThirtyEight’s continuous analysis since October 2021 consistently portrays negative approval ratings, standing at -11.1 as of July 23, 2023. Recent polls do not corroborate the Vice President’s assertion of having “great ratings.”