How Trump plans to compete with Kamala Harris

GermanyDonald Trump crafted his campaign around a specific opponent, launching a spoof that portrayed President Joe Biden as old and infirm and unable to continue in office. Now, four months before the election, Trump will run against a candidate who is nearly 20 years younger than he is.

Trump officials had been preparing for this moment since the president’s poor debate performance last month, gathering opposition research on Vice President Kamala Harris in case Biden dropped out of the race. When Biden dropped out, Trump’s team and allied groups had already begun to go on the offensive against Harris, who garnered a large number of delegates within 36 hours of Biden’s exit, becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee.

The Trump campaign pointed to her political rise in San Francisco and tried to paint her as a radical leftist from California, hoping to make her a thorn in the side of moderate voters. They began circulating a 2019 GovTrack survey that showed Ranking Harris is the most liberal senator in the U.S. The National Republican Senatorial Committee used a viral meme to encourage Republican candidates and officeholders have highlighted her personality traits, such as her love of Venn diagrams. Some MAGA loyalists ridicule Harris, the first Black, Asian and female vice president, was nominated as the “DEI” candidate, using the acronym for “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Trump recently nicknamed his new opponent “Liar Kamala Harris” on his “Truth Social” platform. called She was “dumb as a rock”.

In some ways, the Trump camp is not starting from scratch. They plan to accuse Harris of attacking the same policy issues on which Biden is most vulnerable, including inflation and rising border crossings. At the same time, they will try to keep alive a signature campaign issue by accusing her of covering up Biden’s intellectual decline. “You’re still attacking the same record,” said one person close to Trump. “She’s complicit in the record. She has no chance to hide.”

In other words: Trump’s campaign is on, and he will decide the outcome of this matchup. Because Biden’s exit did not spark the Democratic infighting that many expected, Republicans are plotting to weaken Harris’s position as she reintroduces herself to voters. “It’s very important to define your opponent before he defines himself,” said Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., a Trump surrogate. “That’s going to be the focus of the campaign.”

Harris solidified her campaign faster than anyone expected. Within 24 hours, she had endorsements from Biden, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi. She beat out potential challengers including Illinois Gov. JD Pritzker, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Increase $81 million is astounding. In short, the Democratic Party is no longer in disarray.

Trump and his allies still have plenty of time and resources. His campaign reports almost Last month, it had $130 million in cash on hand, as well as a PAC supporting Trump. Increase Between April and June, more than $430 million was raised. This was before Trump survived an assassination attempt, which sparked another fundraising boom. Wall Street Journal Reported Last week, Elon Musk planned to donate $45 million to a PAC supporting Trump. As a result, there will be a lot of money in the bank to support the candidate who has supernatural powers to defeat his opponents.

The funds have already been deployed. Shortly after Biden announced his candidacy on Sunday afternoon, MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC, released an attack ad that aired in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona. Accusations Harris has obscured Biden’s “clear mental decline” and pushed the administration’s policies. “It’s been a very easy transition because she was the one who hid his condition from the public,” said Alex Pfeiffer, communications director for MAGA Inc. “How can she be trusted?” The group Discarded Another ad calls Harris a “dangerous liberal.”

Many of Trump’s supporters see Biden as a weaker candidate than Harris. The day before the president withdrew, Trump vote Thousands of MAGA rally attendees in Michigan asked him who they wanted him to run against. The crowd booed when he mentioned Harris and cheered when he referred to “Crooked Joe Biden.”

Privately, Trump’s top lieutenants acknowledge that Harris’ candidacy changes the race. For Democrats, she allays primary voters’ concerns that both candidates are too old for a second term. She can highlight the former president’s role in ending the constitutional right to abortion by appointing three conservative judges who overturned Supreme Court decisions. Roe v. WadeHarris, a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, has said she will portray the campaign as a contest between prosecutors and felons. “He’s still going to say this is a partisan witch hunt,” said a person close to Trump.

Trump plans to frame this election as a referendum on Biden as much as possible. Despite Biden’s significant accomplishments in his first term — leading the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, passing more major legislation than any president since Lyndon Johnson and rallying the West against Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine — he still lags behind among voters. 57% of Americans Disagree His work performance.

“Joe Biden is the worst president I’ve ever had in my lifetime, and Kamala Harris is right there with him.” Tweet Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance. “She is responsible for all of these failures, and she has been lying for nearly four years about Biden’s mental health – saddled the country with a president who is not up to the job.”

Still, this is no longer a contest between Biden and Trump. Most voters have an opinion about each candidate, leading some experts to wonder how few swing voters are left. Harris’s presence could change that.

“As a result, we are forced to spend time and money fighting Crooked Joe Biden, who is polling poorly after a terrible debate and has dropped out of the race,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial. “Now we have to start all over again.”