This happened in what seemed like hours.
A sudden surge in social media chatter surrounding Vice President Kamala Harris has added to the ongoing debate over whether President Joe Biden will end his campaign after last week’s debate. It happened in X, as many political conversations still do.
“All my feed now is Kamala pills,” says Jay Caspian Kang of the New Yorker. posted on the platform on Tuesday night.
As of Wednesday morning, X had made “Kamala” one of the most popular topics in politics with nearly 188,000 posts, many offering a mix of genuine support and ironic confusion. Here are some of Harris’ more memorable lines quickly turned into running jokes. At some point on Tuesday, “KHive,” the name of its vocal online supporters, made it into the top 20 topics on X, according to trends24.in, which tracks the platform.
Biden’s hold on the nomination, which seemed to have entered the debate with confidence, has begun to look weak in recent days. Post-debate anxiety that could have eased next weekend has instead been heightened — likely fueled by historic victories for conservatives on the Supreme Court — with a sitting Democratic congressman calls for retreat and even former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., says on MSNBC it was legitimate for people to question whether Thursday night’s debate performance was part of the “condition.”
The social media energy around Harris appears to be based on the idea that he will take Biden’s place rather than compete with other candidates in an open convention. If Biden is released, he will be first in line for millions of dollars Biden’s campaign war chestand the latest poll showed it better than Biden in a head-to-head matchup With the presumptive Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump.
And it’s not just some Twitterati who see Harris as having a shot at the nomination. Betting markets, where people can bet real money on political outcomes, have swung sharply in Harris’ direction in the past few days. On PredictIt, one of the Internet’s most popular betting markets, Harris has surpassed Biden as the odds-on favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination — giving him almost no chance on June 26.
By Wednesday morning, Biden’s odds had dropped further and Harris had risen then The New York Times reported told an ally of the president that he was considering whether to continue in the race. The report, based on an anonymous source, has not been confirmed by NBC News and has been denied by the White House.