- Kamala Harris has stepped up her attacks on Donald Trump, echoing John Kelly’s view that he’s “a fascist.”
- Her focus on Trump carries some risk as polls show voters are still more concerned about the economy.
- Harris is set to deliver a major address on Tuesday in a place strongly associated with January 6.
Kamala Harris is trying to escape Joe Biden’s unpopular shadow, but she’s closing the presidential campaign with what was once his central message.
Harris and her allies have seized on former White House chief of staff John Kelly calling Donald Trump a “fascist.” Her campaign already has a TV ad with Kelly’s words on the airwaves.
Harris is planning a major speech on Tuesday that she will deliver in the same location where Trump pushed debunked claims about the 2020 election on the morning of January 6, 2021, hours before rioters stopped the certification of Trump’s defeat.
In a scene few could have once predicted, Harris is also relying on Republicans such as former Congresswoman Liz Cheney and conservatives like the noted commentator Charlie Sykes to drive home her pitch to more centrist voters.
Her strategy is not without risk.
“It’s a weak message that is not going to work for her, because it has already been tried out by President Biden over the past couple of years,” Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist, told Business Insider. “What she should be doing is continuing to sell herself to the American people who don’t know her quite yet, and she’s only had 100 days to define herself.”
For months, polls have shown that the economy remains voters’ top concern, though democracy is still important.
A New York Times-Siena College poll released on Friday found that the economy was the most important issue to 27% of the likely electorate. The state of democracy/corruption was further down the priority list behind abortion and immigration.
Harris held a 6 percentage point lead regarding who voters trusted to do a better job handling democracy. But Trump is still more trusted when it comes to handling the economy.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who ran twice for the Democratic presidential nomination, told the Associated Press that Harris “has to start talking more to the needs of working-class people.” Addressing concerns that she’s making the wrong closing argument, Harris told reporters on Friday that voters can process multiple things simultaneously.
“One of the things that I love about the American people is we can hold many thoughts at once,” Harris said.
Ryan Williams, who worked on Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, said Harris’ decision to lean further into attacking Trump risks striking the wrong chord with voters.
“It’s a pretty dour and kind of dark closing message, which is pretty different than when she got into the race — this idea that she was running on vibes and joy,” Williams told Business Insider. “This is not a joyful ending to the campaign to basically go out and accuse your opponent of being Hitler.”
In an interview with The New York Times, Kelly, who also once led the Homeland Security Department, said that Trump fell under the definition of being a “fascist” and would essentially govern like a dictator if voters return him to power. In response, Trump wrote on Truth Social that Kelly is “a LOWLIFE, and a bad General.”
Trump is one of the most well-known presidential hopefuls in history, making it difficult for new attacks to resonate. Polling shows Trump is also more popular now than when he left office in January 2021.
“Look, we’ve heard a lot of extreme things about Donald Trump, from Donald Trump, it’s kind of par for the course, it’s really, unfortunately, with a guy like that kind of baked into the vote at this point,” Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, a Republican, recently told CNN when asked about Kelly’s statements.
Those outside the Harris campaign say her approach is well-taken.
Evan Roth Smith, the lead pollster at BluePrint, pointed to the results of his group’s testing of various potential closing arguments. A message pointing out that the vast majority of Trump’s Cabinet has not endorsed his 2024 run and how his actions on January 6 endangered then-Vice President Mike Pence scored the highest.
Roth Smith said the current messaging is different because some of the harshest criticisms come from those once inside Trump’s White House.
“It’s much convincing when Republicans say nasty things about Republicans and not just any Republican, someone, and more than one someone, who were faces of the Trump administration itself,” he told Business Insider.
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