Staff Reports
Lindy Li says something explosive in her new book Unburdened and in a recent Fox News interview: an internal Democratic poll from 2024 put former Vice President Kamala Harris dead last as a replacement for then‑President Joe Biden. If true, it would be a very awkward truth for the party to hide. If not true, someone owes readers a paper trail and an apology. Either way, this is the news angle we should be focused on right now.
What Lindy Li is claiming
Li, a onetime Democratic National Committee fundraiser, writes that the DNC commissioned a private poll that ranked Kamala Harris below Pete Buttigieg, Gavin Newsom, and Gretchen Whitmer as the best choice if President Biden stepped aside. “Kamala Harris came in dead last. It wasn’t even close,” Li tells Fox News. She also alleges party operatives feared angering key constituencies — especially Black women and Harris’s online supporters known as the K‑Hive — so they buried the bad news and pushed Harris anyway.
Missing proof and public poll contrast
Those are big charges. Big enough that they need proof. So far, Li’s book and interview are the only public sources for the claim. The underlying internal poll, its data and its methodology have not been released for independent review. That matters. Public polls from the same post‑debate period showed a different picture: some public surveys had Harris named more often than the other contenders. Until Li or the DNC produces the poll file, we are left with one person’s account versus public snapshots that do not match her version.
Why this matters for Democrats — and for voters
If Li is right, Democratic leaders put coalition politics and optics ahead of plain electability. They chose to avoid upsetting donors and activists and installed a candidate who, according to Li, didn’t test well. If she’s wrong, the DNC still owes voters the poll so everyone can see what really happened. Either way, the donor class and everyday voters deserve clarity. After a $1 billion loss in the swing states, questions about how decisions were made are not just gossip — they’re material to how the next presidential cycle will be run.
Call for the receipts — and a closing thought
Li’s account is a story until the documents arrive and the poll is verified. Democrats should produce the poll if it exists. Lindy Li should hand over the files or emails that trace who commissioned it. The DNC and the Harris camp should answer plainly. Voters have a right to know whether the party picked a nominee for reasons of loyalty and optics — or because she was the best path to victory. Either way, the circus behind the curtain deserves its receipts. And if the poll proves true, Democrat leaders will have to explain why they valued the K‑Hive and identity politics more than winning — which, for the sake of their party, they really should not have.
