2024-07-26 15:35:21
US Vice President Kamala Harris tried to contrast her priorities as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee with those of the Republicans during an enthusiastically received speech at the American Federation of Teachers convention in Houston.
“We want to ban assault weapons and they want to ban books,” Harris said. Her speech also included several sharp attacks on former President Donald Trump, who she said would “take America back to the dark past.”
Former President Barack Obama did not want to endorse Kamala Harris too quickly to avoid the impression that he had a role in her promotion as a candidate, according to familiar sources cited by the New York Times.
Obama has been in regular contact with Harris since she emerged as the likely Democratic nominee to share her experience and is expected to endorse her soon, people familiar with the situation said.
Obama’s name was conspicuously absent from a number of senior Democrats who have already expressed support for Harris after President Biden dropped out of the race. But Obama has been active behind the scenes, serving as an adviser to Harris and vetting former aides he believes can help her cause, people familiar with the matter said.
The former president was reluctant to endorse Harris too quickly to avoid the impression that he was leading her rise to the presidential candidacy, but also to give his friend and former running mate Biden time to process his crushing decision to withdraw.
Politico notes that as Republicans renew their campaign against Kamala Harris, they are struggling to find a coherent line of attack against her.
In recent days, Republicans have attacked the vice president for everything from her handling of immigration and her past as a prosecutor to her “horrible” and “vicious” behavior. On Wednesday, Donald Trump called Harris a “radical, left-wing nutcase” and the next day branded her “disgusting” in an interview with Fox News, echoing the insults Trump hurled at Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Trump’s allies, meanwhile, claim she was actively involved in a conspiracy to cover up Biden’s apparent meltdown, or that she’s just another Biden. Some of them launched into blatantly racist and sexist attacks, calling her a “mercenary of the ideas of diversity, equality and inclusion” or reproaching her for not having biological children. Others say he laughs too much. She is even more criticized for endorsing consumer policies such as banning plastic straws and eating red meat.
“They’re literally grasping at straws,” Politico quoted Michael Brodkorb, former vice chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party. “Republicans were desperate to take on Joe Biden. … I think getting Harris into the race upended their strategies.”
The range and lack of coherence in the Republican attack on Harris reflects the novelty of her candidacy, but also the difficulty GOP officials are having adjusting to a challenger who takes a different stance.
The sense of imminent doom that surrounded the Democratic Party for months has evaporated, there is new energy, and Donald Trump and his team appear shaken, the Financial Times found.
The newspaper cited three new polls released Wednesday that gave the vice president a higher approval rating than Trump — something that hadn’t happened for President Joe Biden in months. It is important to note that the support for Harris did not come from pre-made voters who changed their loyalties, but from winning over previously undecided and third-party voters, especially young, black and Latino voters, whom Biden had a hard time attracting.
The Financial Times notes that if the question is whether Harris can win on Nov. 5, we should be comparing her not to the Biden of July 2024, but to the Biden of the first days of November 2020. By that measure, Harris is performing well badly. The vice president’s lead over Trump in ratings is currently around 4 points; in the run-up to the 2020 election, Biden’s was over 15. In terms of voting intentions, Harris is about level with Trump, while Biden at this point in 2020 was several points ahead. A good start is a good thing, but in order to win, she needs to achieve significant additional successes, the paper said.
A survey by the polling agency Blueprint shows that voters do not blame Harris for inflation and the poor state of the economy, as they blamed Biden. Her candidacy is, to use her own oft-repeated mantra, “what can be, unencumbered by what has been.” The same poll shows Harris has a big lead over Trump on abortion. Her strong position on reproductive rights could be especially important as the transition from “Trump vs. Biden” to “Trump and J.D. Vance vs. Harris” makes abortion more important. The Split Ticket poll shows that if the two parties are clearly divided on abortion by November, that would give Democrats a big boost. Another headwind comes from the group of “double haters”, ie. those who don’t like either Biden or Trump. SouthGov data shows that a large portion of this group plans to vote Democratic in congressional elections. These are not wavering voters, but natural Democrats who have been disillusioned with Biden but could now be persuaded to come back.
The selection of a vice presidential candidate also favors Harris. JD Vance was elected more for his ideology and loyalty than for election strategy. Instead of the classic profile of a moderate who can act as a bridge to wavering voters, he is perceived by Ohioans as more conservative than Trump. This contrasts with Harris’ potential candidates, Josh Shapiro and Mark Kelly, who support Democrats in their home states, Brian Schaffner, a political science professor at Tufts University, noted in his analysis, the Financial Times reported.
Kamala Harris has accused Donald Trump of “backing out” of a pre-arranged September presidential debate, the Guardian has learned, after the Trump campaign said it would not agree to finalize plans until Harris is officially the Democratic nominee.
Harris told reporters yesterday that she was “ready to debate Donald Trump.” The debate, hosted by ABC News, was scheduled for September 10.
The September debate was one of two that Joe Biden and Trump had agreed on. The first was hosted by CNN on June 27, during which Biden performed disastrously and ultimately precipitated his decision to withdraw as the Democratic nominee.
The Independent covers the release of Kamala Harris’ first official campaign video as she battles to officially secure the Democratic presidential nomination and defeat Donald Trump.
The 59-year-old vice president’s campaign team released the clip on social media channels, hitting key messages on abortion rights, tackling gun violence and LGBT+ rights — as well as preventing the “chaos” of a second Trump term.