Republicans adjust their attacks for their new foe, Kamala Harris

DONALD TRUMP SPOKE at the Republican National Convention for more than 90 minutes, often going off script. But he never once said “Kamala Harris”. The former president and his advisers built a campaign around attacking Joe Biden and stuck to that message relentlessly. Yet Mr Trump has found himself with a new rival just over 100 days out from the election. The Trump team’s modified message began to take shape almost as soon as Mr Biden had dropped out and Ms Harris began to consolidate support for the Democratic nomination.

Even if Mr Trump’s advisers preferred a run against a collapsing Biden campaign, they appear set to stick with much of their earlier strategy. As vice-president, Ms Harris has tied herself more closely to Mr Biden’s unpopular administration than has any other politician in America—opening her up to attacks over stubborn inflation, multiplying international crises and chaos at the southern border. “Harris will be even WORSE for the people of our Nation than Joe Biden. Harris has been the Enabler in Chief for Crooked Joe this entire time,” Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, the Trump campaign’s top officials, wrote on July 21st. “Harris must defend the failed Biden Administration AND her liberal, weak-on-crime record in CA.”

Republicans will knock Ms Harris as a progressive pretending to moderate. They have already started to remind voters in swing states about her record as California’s attorney-general and a senator representing the state, as well as her too-brief presidential campaign in 2020. Expect Republicans to tie Ms Harris to rampant crime in San Francisco and California’s dysfunction more generally.

A top Trump super PAC noted that Ms Harris once called the idea of a 70% top marginal tax rate “fantastic” and had voiced support for giving illegal immigrants access to Medicare, a taxpayer-funded health-care programme for the elderly. These sorts of policy positions played well in left-leaning California but may prove riskier with a national audience.

Ms Harris ran to the left of Mr Biden during her ill-fated presidential campaign, and down-ballot Republicans have started to try tying their rivals to her more unpopular positions. Dave McCormick, a Republican Senate candidate in fossil-fuel-friendly Pennsylvania, tweeted a video of Ms Harris announcing her opposition to fracking: “This is who [the Democratic incumbent] Bob Casey just endorsed for the presidency.”

The vice-president, who is a relatively youthful 59 years old, will not face the same attacks on her age as Mr Biden has. But after years in the national spotlight Ms Harris has created a long digital trail of awkward remarks that extend beyond policy. Compilations of Ms Harris using her favourite faux-profound line—“what can be, unburdened by what has been”—have gone viral. Other videos, like her superficial meditation on “the significance of the passage of time” or her answer to why she had not visited America’s southern border (“And I haven’t been to Europe”) will be used to conjure up an image of a weird and unprepared politician.

As America’s first female, non-white vice-president, she has also been the object of plenty of sexist and racist attacks. No doubt that will continue, especially as some argue that she owes her ascent to her race and gender rather than to merit. The question is how Mr Trump, who has alienated suburban women in past campaigns, will comport himself. Now that Mr Biden has dropped out, Mr Trump said, “I think the Debate, with whomever the Radical Left Democrats choose, should be held on FoxNews, rather than very biased ABC.” After eagerly accepting Mr Biden’s debate terms, Mr Trump may calculate that avoiding an on-camera confrontation with Ms Harris would serve him best.

Republicans have been trolling Democrats with the idea that Ms Harris’s anointing would lack democratic legitimacy. She appears set to achieve the difficult task of winning her party’s nomination without ever winning a primary contest. They will argue that the party running on a “save democracy” theme ultimately had its nominee chosen by elites who vetoed the choice of millions of Americans who supported Mr Biden.

And Republicans are continuing to attack Mr Biden, too, as a way to undermine Ms Harris. “If Joe Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to serve as President,” said Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House. “He must resign the office immediately.” Ms Wiles and Mr LaCivita echo that idea in their memo: “Does Harris believe the people of America are safe and secure with Joe Biden in the White House for six more months?” Republicans hope that question leads Americans to conclude that they won’t be safe with Ms Harris in the Oval Office, either. 

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