Donald Trump’s campaign is frantically revamping its strategy, scrapping moot plans to characterize ex-opponent Joe Biden as feeble and testing new attack lines on Kamala Harris, who is two decades younger than the Republican nominee.
With roughly 100 days until Election Day — and less than two months before voting begins in some states — Trump, 78, has little time to define a Democratic opponent who emerged just days ago. He auditioned new messages, with mixed results, this week on a call with reporters about the U.S.-Mexico border, in TV appearances and his social media platform.
Trump has berated Harris, 59, for being the “worst border person in history,” “dumb as a rock,” and a “weak prosecutor” who “destroyed the city of San Francisco.” He’s mocked her laugh and floated two nicknames: “Laffin’ Kamala” and “Lyin’ Kamala.” His allies have called Harris a “DEI” hire, short for diversity, equity and inclusion, and implied she became vice president because she is a woman of color.
Harris, for her part, has leaned into her prior role as a prosecutor, saying she knows “Trump’s type,” referring to his felony conviction and other legal troubles.
Trump’s litany of complaints about Harris run the risk of alienating the voters he needs to attract — suburban women, young adults, Black and Hispanic people. Attacks that veer into racism and sexism could also undermine the unity message Republicans sought to project at their nominating convention.
“The risk of the Republican messaging is that it could backfire and be perceived as unfair and sexist,” said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist professor emeritus at Emory University.
The vitriol directed toward Harris shows the extent to which her emergence as the likely Democratic nominee has upset the 2024 presidential race. For months, the Trump campaign prepped to run against Biden by questioning his age and record on immigration and the economy. Now, in late July, the switch-up has caught the Trump campaign off-guard, forcing it to re-write their messaging.
Rhetoric warnings
Top House Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson, have warned fellow party members to steer away from attacks on race or gender, an acknowledgment of the political risks they carry.
“This election will be about policies and not personalities,” Johnson said Tuesday.
Trump has a history of attacking politicians of color over their backgrounds. He falsely claimed President Barack Obama was a Muslim who was not born in the U.S. Trump similarly questioned whether Republican primary rival Nikki Haley, whom he called “birdbrain,” was eligible to serve as president because she’s the daughter of immigrants.
While Trump’s scattershot attacks underscore the changed nature of the race, Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said the contest’s fundamentals remain the same.
“Joe Biden acted like a California liberal,” he said. “Kamala Harris is a California liberal.”
In addition to settling on an anti-Harris message, the Trump campaign must contend with whoever she picks as her running mate. The electoral map is also poised to change with Harris at the top of the ticket.
Georgia is now in play for the Democrats, as Black voters there express enthusiasm for the vice president, Abramowitz said. Biden won the state in 2020 but it had been reliable Republican territory for decades and was seen as a reach for the president in November.
Swing state plays
Potential running mates for Harris include North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, who could help pull in more support from their home states — all battlegrounds this November.
“With Vice President Harris as the top of the ticket now, we have an easier time making the argument that this election is about the future,” Nick Ahamed, deputy executive director at Priorities USA, a group that supports Democrats, said on a call with reporters on Tuesday.
A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll shows Harris and Trump statistically tied, but found signs Harris could pick up new support. One in five independent voters said they were undecided, compared to 4% before Biden dropped out. Black voters said they were more likely to vote with the president no longer running.
This could change the calculus for both campaigns as they try to win over crucial swing-state voters. The Trump campaign had planned to build a winning coalition by appealing to its Republican base and expanding support among Black men and in Hispanic communities, all while hoping Democrats suffered from low turnout given the lack of enthusiasm about Biden.
Those objectives may now be harder to accomplish. In a new campaign memo, Harris campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon wrote that 7% of all voters remain undecided and could be persuaded to support Harris.
“These voters are disproportionately Black, Latino, and under 30. They are more likely to have supported the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020, and are two times more likely to be Democrats than Republicans,” she wrote. “We have a clear issue and character advantage.”
