With a new Democrat nominee replacing Joe Biden, Republicans need to be about the business of introducing America to Kamala Harris, says Daniel Horowitz, a senior editor at Blaze News.
Speaking on American Family Radio, Horowitz told show host Jenna Ellis there’s danger in underestimating Harris. Trump can defeat her in November if the former president drops the name-calling approach and focuses on policies American voters care about.
The popularity and reach of social media might make that a difficult path for Trump. There are lots of clips, videos, and memes that mock Harris for everything from word-salad speeches to her career-enhancing romance with Willie Brown, the late San Francisco mayor.
That is low-hanging fruit for Trump, who is is known for ridiculing his opponents. Horowitz, who is known for studying politics and policy, predicts things will get more difficult if Trump chooses that route.
“While there's a lot to make fun out of Kamala in terms of her personality, let that shine through on its own," Horowitz advised. "It’s just dressing her down on her policies that will reset this race to a more positive level and raise Trump's chances of winning."
The blueprint to attack Harris
If Harris critics want to see a professional, non-profane criticism of Harris, one example hit social media earlier this week. It is a 1 minute, 31-seconds campaign ad posted by Republican Dave McCormick, a U.S. Senate candidate from Pennsylvania. It is a collection of Harris interviews in which the presumptive Democratic nominee:
- embraces climate legislation,
- opposes off-shore drilling,
- supports decriminalizing illegal immigration,
- supports abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),
- supports defunding police,
- won’t rule out voting rights for convicted felons,
- supports mandatory “buy back program” for guns,
- supports elimination private insurance,
- supports taxpayer funded healthcare for illegal immigrants
Harris was named the most liberal senator in 2019 by GovTrack.us, an independent website that tracks Congress, though that website has now backtracked on its statistics from four years ago.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis highlighted these same Harris positions.
“Democrats are only excited about Kamala Harris at the moment because they no longer have a candidate who’s catatonic, but she may fall flat on her face before the convention. She’s a lousy candidate and would be an even worse president,” DeSantis wrote.
A Trump campaign that has been focused for months on pointing frailty and weakness in Biden has not made an easy shift of messaging toward Harris.
“We need to reset a certain baseline,” he said.
GOP rep: Focus on the 'California progressive'
In a separate AFR interview, Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisconsin) echoed the need to tell voters about the Harris record.
“We need to talk about how Kamala Harris is a California progressive,” he told Ellis. “She’s fine with men going into girls’ locker rooms. She cast the deciding vote on the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, the massive spending bill that has led to the inflation that’s sucking up peoples’ paychecks and Social Security checks.”
Ultimately, there’s no greater contrast between Trump and Harris than the southern border, Tiffany said.
“Kamala Harris and the wreckage that (the border) has caused in America, whether it’s the fentanyl poisonings, the human trafficking, the terrorists coming in … it’s been nothing but an unmitigated disaster, and she’s in charge of it," the Congressman said. "We have to tell the American people in very plain terms who Kamala Harris is. Hopefully they’re listening.”
Trump handed a 'gift' in new opponent
According to Horowitz, there are certain realities in presidential politics. If the election hinges on “personalities and soap opera-style politics,” he advises, Democrats typically win because that is where their liberal friends in the news media help get Democrats over the hump.
If Americans focus on policy, Republicans win, Horowitz said.
“The beauty of this election is that there is a straight-up gift from God with ‘Commie’ Kamala, the most liberal senator in the Senate when she was there," he said. "We have tailor-made issues for suburban married women: crime, illegal immigration, gangbangers, the drug crisis, parental rights, this radical agenda to try to transform America's children into, into this demonic construct."
Harris, abortion, and abortion clinics
After being put in charge of "stemming" illegal immigration two months into the Biden presidency, Harris quietly drifted away from that role only for it to resurface three years, and 10 million illegal aliens, later.
Illegal immigration has now emerged as a main issue for voters, both Democrats and Republicans, but the liberal media criticized by Horowitz is attempting to shift the debate to whether Harris really held the title "border czar."
More recently, Harris been the administration's spokesperson on an issue it believes it can win against Republicans: abortion.
From Harris and other Democrats, it’s phrased as “reproductive freedom.”
“We who believe in reproductive freedom will stop Donald Trump’s extreme abortion bans because we trust women to make decisions about their bodies,” Harris said to cheers at a rally in Milwaukee on Tuesday. “When Congress passes a law to restore reproductive freedoms, as president, I will sign it into law.”
As a senator, she voted against born alive protections and states’ rights. She is an original sponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act which bans states from having pro-life laws and mandates abortion at any point during a pregnancy throughout the U.S.
In March, Harris also became the first vice president to visit an abortion clinic.
Despite repeated claims from Harris, Trump does not support a federal abortion ban. He has frequently stated he supports the rights of states to regulate abortion, which is what the Dobbs ruling did when it overturned Roe v. Wade.
Pro-life leaders, in fact, have complained the Republican platform has watered down the abortion issue at the same time Democrats are hoping to energize white liberal women and get them to the polls in November.
Horowitz says there’s plenty of policy material to help Trump win the key demographic of married women.
“Married women are where this election will be won or lost,” he predicted. “Clearly, we can do a lot better on that front.”
Trump won the suburban vote by four points in 2016 and lost it by two points in 2020, Horowitz said.
Ultimately, there’s too much recent history to think the election is a lock, Horowitz said.
Trump didn’t defeat Hillary Clinton by wide margins in 2016, and that victory was followed by a string of defeats including his own in 2020.
DEI promises vs. Election Day votes
The idea of painting Kamala Harris as a “DEI candidate” is not inaccurate, Horowitz advises, but it gains nothing for the Trump campaign.
In the name of diversity, Biden pledged to choose a black woman as his running mate in 2020. Rep. Val Demings, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice, and Rep. Karen Bass were also considered at the time, CNN reported.
Biden also pledged to put a black woman on the Supreme Court, and he followed through with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
With such emphasis on race and sex, it’s not a leap to conclude those qualifications were most important to Biden, but the national media is using the issue to make Harris a victim of racist, mean Republicans.
“If we keep making this about personal stuff, Trump with his name-calling, I just don’t think we’re going to win back those few percent. The name-calling turns people off,” Horowitz said.
He pointed to McCormick’s X post as the “blueprint" for how to attack her on policy and win in November.
"That’s the way to turn around, not just this race, but the trajectory for the last five years," Horowitz said.
