Does Kamala Harris have what it takes to beat Trump if Biden bows out?

With pressure mounting for President Joe Biden to stand aside after his troubling debate performance against Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris has emerged as a surprisingly strong potential challenger to the ex-president.

Harris — the first woman, the first African-American and the first person of Asian descent to serve in the nation’s second-highest office — has been dogged by dismal approval ratings and a policy portfolio that has seen her take on politically tricky issues, like the root causes of an immigration crisis that’s brought hundreds of thousands to the US in recent years.

But she has also spent the last three years building a profile on the world stage, most recently at last month’s Ukraine peace talks in Switzerland. She’s also become the administration’s most prominent messenger on reproductive freedom in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, which marked the end of a half-century-old federal right to an abortion. Harris’ “reproductive freedom tour” has taken her to events across the country where she has barnstormed events packed with female and minority voters.

As a practical matter, Harris would have a built-in advantage were Biden to step aside because she would be the only person who could tap into the massive war chest already raised for her and Biden’s re-election bid. She would also be able to take advantage of the nationwide apparatus the Biden-Harris campaign has already built, making her the natural successor to Biden if he does choose to stand down.

One Democratic strategist who spoke to The Independent said Harris would enjoy broad support from young voters and other party factions that have soured on Biden.

“People who are unhappy with Trump versus Biden now get to say ‘we