A Kamala Harris-themed memecoin gained nearly 250% on Thursday as United States President Joe Biden faced mounting pressure to drop out of the presidential race after a poor debate against Donald Trump.
Kamala Horris (KAMA) — a deliberately misspelled Solana token marketed with a poorly drawn cartoon of the U.S. vice president — has seen its market cap grow to nearly $11.9 million from $3.5 million at the time of the June 27 debate, per Dex Screener.
It is down from its $22.2 million market cap peak earlier on July 3.
Harris is the top choice to replace Biden if he drops his reelection bid, Reuters reported on July 3, citing seven senior sources at the Biden campaign, the White House and the Democratic National Committee privy to current discussions.
Meanwhile, Jeo Boden (BODEN) — a similarly misspelled memecoin for President Biden — has collapsed over 22% in the past 24 hours and 73.4% over the past week, according to CoinGecko.
KAMA’s rally and BODEN’s drawdown come after the June 27 Biden-Trump debate, with political analysts widely noting Biden’s poor debate performance, who sounded raspy and at times seemed to lose his train of thought.
Biden, 81, is the oldest person to ever run for president and has blamed his performance on a cold, over-preparing and jet lag despite being in the same time zone during the week leading up to the Atlanta-hosted debate.
Pressure mounts as Biden sinks in polls
Voters, media outlets and Democratic lawmakers are pressuring Biden to drop out as concerns grow that he won’t be able to beat Trump in the Nov. 5 election, with FiveThirtyEight polls giving Trump a 2.3 percentage point lead.
A July 3 New York Times and Siena College poll also has Trump leading and shows three-quarters of voters think Biden is too old for the top job, a five percentage point hike since the debate.
It follows a July 2 CNN poll in which three-quarters of U.S. voters said Democrats would have a better shot at winning the election with someone other than Biden as the contender. Nearly half of Democratic Party voters in a July 1 CBS News poll think he shouldn’t be the party’s nominee.
Gamblers on the crypto prediction platform Polymarket have put Biden’s odds of dropping out of the race at 64%, up from 19% before the debate.
Biden’s dire polling results come as at least four Democrats in House of Representatives told Axios on July 3 that Biden should step down, with one saying a “very large majority of the caucus shares this sentiment.”
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Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also told MSNBC that it is “completely legitimate” to question if Biden’s debate performance is a “condition” or just “an episode.”
"I think it's a legitimate question to say, 'Is this an episode or is this a condition?'...of both candidates."
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) July 2, 2024
WATCH: Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi reacts to Democrats concerns about President Biden. pic.twitter.com/KRm2fdfXH0
On Wednesday, July 3, the Boston Globe editorial board joined The New York Times, The New Yorker and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in asking Biden to step down and give another candidate a shot to beat Trump.
Biden won’t back down
Biden has apparently acknowledged he may not be able to salvage his candidacy if he fails to demonstrate his fitness for office, according to reports from The Washington Post and The New York Times, citing those close to Biden.
Despite the pressure, the president has said he’s still up to the job.
“Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can — as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running,” Biden said on a July 3 Zoom call with campaign staff, according to Politico. “No one’s pushing me out. I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end.”
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