Kamala Harris goes global as she seeks to bolster her image before 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris is representing President Joe Biden at British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak‘s Global Artificial Intelligence Safety Summit as she seeks to improve her political standing before next year’s election.

The two-day summit provides Harris another opportunity to prove herself on the world stage with a less politically charged policy issue, regardless of whether she and Biden have to contend with former President Donald Trump in 2024.

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Foreign travel is part of the modern vice presidency, with George H.W. Bush and even Biden doing “quite a lot of it,” according to vice presidential scholar Joel Goldstein. Since inauguration, for instance, Harris has been to the Indo-Pacific five times as Biden tries to counter China‘s rise in the region and is now on her fifth trip to Europe, twice to address the Munich Security Conference amid Russia‘s war in Ukraine.

“One of the aspects of VP Harris’s work which has been widely overlooked is the important diplomatic role she has played,” Goldstein told the Washington Examiner. “Harris’s handling of these and other assignments for Biden allows the administration to do more [and] demonstrates Biden’s confidence in her and reflects her status as an able and experienced diplomatic operator.”

Although Goldstein, a Saint Louis University School of Law professor emeritus, is not “convinced” Harris is a “political liability,” Republicans criticized Harris’s AI policy speech, delivered at the U.S. Embassy in London on the summit’s sidelines Wednesday.

“When people around the world cannot discern fact from fiction because of a flood of AI-enabled mis- and disinformation, I ask, ‘Is that not existential for democracy?'” Harris said in a clip shared by the Republican National Committee. “The benefits of AI are immense. It could give us the power to fight the climate crisis.”

Harris’s approval-disapproval ratings were 36%-56% in September, with 8% of respondents telling Monmouth University pollsters they do not have an opinion of her. While her approval rating was the same as that in a March Monmouth poll, her disapproval increased from 53%, with 12% not having an opinion of her.

“Harris’s approval numbers have consistently been just slightly below Biden’s rating,” Monmouth University Polling Institute Director Patrick Murray said.

Biden’s average approval-disapproval is net negative 15 percentage points, 41% to 56%, per RealClearPolitics.

Suffolk University Political Research Center Director David Paleologos agreed pollsters have not found “any significant movement” in Harris’s approval.

“It’s improbable that her ratings would drop further, though still possible,” he said. “So, her deployment to the U.K. could benefit her, barring a significant gaffe.”

During her remarks Wednesday, Harris repeated that she and Biden “reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or advance innovation.” She also announced an AI Safety Institute within the Commerce Department, draft guidance for federal government use of AI, a $200 million private funding pledge for AI safety, and a commitment from 30 countries to the United States’s “Political Declaration on the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy.”

“I believe history will show that this was the moment when we had the opportunity to lay the groundwork for the future of AI, and the urgency of this moment must then compel us to create a collective vision of what this future must be,” she said. “A future where AI is used to advance human rights and human dignity, where privacy is protected and people have equal access to opportunity, where we make our democracies stronger and our world safer.”

Harris’s work regarding advanced technology is less complicated politically than her other policy portfolios of the root causes of migration, abortion access, gun control, and voting rights. But the vice president’s trip comes after the White House posted a photo of an Israel–Hamas war Oval Office briefing, saying she was in attendance but was not pictured. It additionally comes after her interview last weekend with CBS’s 60 Minutes, in which she underscored her and Biden’s record despite Trump having an average 1 point edge over Biden in head-to-head polling, again from RealClearPolitics.

“I look at it more as let’s keep getting out there,” she said. “As with any election, we’ve got to make our case to the American people. That’s part of our responsibility. And that’s this process, and that’s what it is, and that’s a fair process.”

During the sit-down, Harris dismissed “parlor games” concerning her replacing Biden, a possibility amplified by Republican presidential primary candidates, adamant she is “focused on the job.”

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“Well, first of all, I’m not gonna engage in that hypothetical because Joe Biden is very much alive and running for reelection,” she added. “So, there we are.”

After her AI address, Harris met with U.S. Embassy staff before heading to 10 Downing Street for a bilateral sit-down and dinner with Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty. She is expected to take part in two summit sessions on Thursday, one with other foreign leaders and another with foreign leaders, business executives, and civil society representatives.