Perhaps not in decades has the “are you better off now than four years ago” question been more applicable, he says.
Vice President Kamala Harris is racking up style points but voters deserve more, Good, a House Republican from Virginia, said on Washington Watch Tuesday.
“I hope they will demand substance. She doesn’t want to debate, she won’t take questions, she won’t hold press conferences, she won’t do substantive interviews, she doesn’t have any positions on her website even,” Good told show host Jody Hice.
One possible reason Harris is dodging accountability with voters is that it’s working to her advantage so far. Polls at Morning Consult show Harris leading 48%-44% over Donald Trump, and that’s before the anticipated boost that comes from any party convention.
The latest numbers at FiveThirtyEight.com, which averages the national polls, shows Harris ahead 2.8 points.
So far they think it’s working because they think she’s risen in the polls compared to where Biden was.
"She’s a little more popular than she was when she was just the vice president just a few weeks ago. They seem to think it’s working. The Biden basement strategy worked to some extent four years ago,” Good said.
Those pesky presidential issues
When substance becomes important, the numbers change.
A CBS poll over the weekend showed Harris ahead 51-48 but tied with Trump in battleground states. The same poll showed Trump with sizeable leads on key issues like the economy (Trump 56-43), inflation (Trump 61-38) and control of the southern border (Trump 76-24).
Policy looks to be solid ground for Republicans, but that’s not what wins elections, conservative show host Dan Bongino said.
His theory explains why Harris has risen in the polls relative to Biden’s basement numbers earlier in the race.
“Campaigns are really two things," Bongino said. "They are snapshots and sound bites. It’s quick little things that people ingest. The hard reality is people are working for a living. You got cab drivers, architects, pilots. They’re not reading a 51-page tax plan. It’s a freaking sound bite."
Harris’ Seinfeld campaign
Marc Lotter, the chief of communications at America First Policy Institute, compares the Harris campaign to the Seinfeld sitcom.
“It’s a show about nothing. They’re running all on vibes and joy but not actually talking about solutions to problems,” Lotter said on American Family Radio Wednesday.
A quick web search shows Donald Trump’s name mentioned 14 times in the first two nights of the Democratic National Convention while the economy has been mentioned only four times.
“When you do hear them even try to maybe dip a toe into talking about policy, they're talking about things they'll do on Day 1. Well, I got news for you, Kamala. You're there now. You are in the White House right now. Joe's off on vacation. Who knows what he's doing. You're there. Why do we have to wait?” Lotter told show host Jenna Ellis.
When Harris talks substance she talks communism, Good says.
“It was communism," he argued, "that we’re going to have price controls, communism that we’re going to pay people these extended tax credits, which is essentially giving checks to people who don’t pay any taxes. Then the $25,000 down payment for first-time home buyers which would essentially raise the cost of housing as the market would adjust to new cash that was infused into it.”
Harris is doubling down on the policies that have caused 40-year high inflation and 20-year high interest rates, Good said.
“I think the Trump campaign, the House and Senate campaigns on the Republican said, certainly need to run on policy. They need to demonstrate the difference between the four years under President Trump and the four years under Joe Biden,” Good said.
The other clear policy difference between Harris and Trump is abortion.
Harris has falsely accused Trump of supporting a nationwide ban on abortion when, in reality, Trump has backed off the issue of abortion and disappointed many pro-life voters.
Trump has said he agrees with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to return abortion regulation to the states.
Democrats, meanwhile, continue to push the false abortion claim, posting it to the Democrat National Committee website just a month ago.
Good: Democrats are ‘party of death’
“This is the party of death. This is the party that celebrates abortion. We can remember 30 years ago the Clinton Era, the Democrats at least not long ago believed that abortion was a bad thing, that it ought to be so-called safe, legal and rare as they used to put it. Now they’re celebrating it, actually performing abortions on-site in the abortion trailer that’s outside of the arena,” Good said.
Harris’ brief presidential campaign got off to a fast start in 2020, but she bailed before the Iowa caucuses, Lotter said.
He expects Democrats to lean into sound bites and images, underscoring the Bongino theory of what wins elections.
Lotter, though, believes Harris will fail again.
“The same thing is going to happen. We’re already starting to see the polls move back to where they were, and that’s because they know Kamala Harris. She’s like the Doritos that she loves. She’s empty calories. She might be satisfying for the moment, but she can’t make it. She’s not sustainable.’
