In recent weeks, Vice President Kamala Harris has begun to echo the attacks against former President Donald Trump that were often employed by President Joe Biden before he dropped out of the race. This move suggests a sense of desperation and implies that her previous rhetorical strategies failed to resonate with voters, as evidenced by polling results from last week.
As the election draws nearer, presidential campaigns typically pivot towards more unifying messages. However, Harris’s repeated criticisms of Trump do not present a cohesive message for potential voters, underscoring her campaign’s dire straits. In a Wall Street Journal interview, Trump national spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt stated that “Harris is desperately attacking President Trump because she’s losing… Kamala is losing major ground with key demographics that she needs to win, including young people, union workers, Black and Hispanic voters.
Polling data reveals a decline in support for Harris among men, black voters, and Hispanic voters. Meanwhile, Trump has improved upon his 2020 and 2016 performances. Swing state polls indicate that the President is either leading or within the margin of error against his opponent. Moreover, early voting numbers and voter registrations appear to favor Trump in many states.
Political analyst Mark Halperin told Tucker Carlson on Fox News that Harris’s adoption of Biden’s rhetoric aims to appeal to independent voters, but it might not be sustainable for long: “There’s a lot of Democrats who are not satisfied with Biden, but a lot of Democrats, and certainly a lot of independents and centrists and moderates, they don’t like either of these choices, and that — that’s part of what Democrats are looking at.
Halperin added, “Because I think in the end, as much as she’s not satisfied people’s desire for knowledge about her, they won’t vote for Trump. They just simply don’t want four more years of Trump, and she’s turned to that and turned to that message in the last 24 hours the way Biden did. Now I don’t know if she’ll stick with it, but she’s now emphasizing this notion of ‘We can’t go back to somebody this unstable and this, and this unattractive in terms of personality.