Scoop: Senate GOP plots new attacks on Kamala Harris
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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on the South Lawn of the White House. Photo: Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is urging its candidates to hit Vice President Kamala Harris for being too liberal, at fault for the border crisis and "weird," according to a memo obtained by Axios.
Why it matters: Republicans are pivoting to their new election playbook that argues Harris could be even better for down-ballot Republicans than President Biden.
- The GOP plans to exploit the dynamic of Biden himself having doubted his VP's chances at beating Trump.
- "It is important to remember the only reason Joe Biden held on as long as he did was by aggressively making the case that his Vice President is an even worse candidate than him," NRSC executive director Jason Thielman wrote in a memo sent to campaigns on Monday.
Zoom in: The memo lays out how Republicans will shift their election strategy to run against Harris. It alludes to polling that shows the VP "as, if not more, unpopular than Joe Biden in every single competitive state."
- The theme throughout: Republicans will paint Harris as a "radical" progressive, pointing to an old ranking of her as the most liberal senator and reminding voters of past pledges to ban fracking, decriminalize illegal border crossings and eliminate cash bail, among other things.
- Immigration is the first policy issue listed in the document. Republicans have long made Harris a bogeyman for record illegal border crossings after Biden charged her with addressing the "root causes" of migration back in 2021.
- The memo also includes a "weird" category — mocking Harris' "habit of laughing at inappropriate moments," her self-proclaimed love of Venn diagrams and her call to ban plastic straws, among other things.
Zoom out: Republicans had been drooling over what they saw as an election landslide if an embattled Biden remained at the top of the Democratic ticket.
- His withdrawal forces them to rewrite their plan for victory, recut ads and shift their focus — even as Republicans tell Axios they see real vulnerabilities for Harris.
- One senior strategist described a sense of relief in GOP circles that the party seems to be coalescing around Harris, rather than other Democratic stars like Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
What they're saying: "Candidates should not be shy about aggressively tying their opponents to Kamala Harris' extreme agenda," Thielman wrote at the end of the memo.
- "Kamala Harris is not a good candidate. When she ran for President the first time, she dropped out of the race before Iowa and was polling behind Andrew Yang."
The other side: "Senate Republicans are in meltdown mode because they are still stuck with the same flawed recruits and toxic agenda that have left them trailing Senate Democrats all cycle long," a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson told Axios in a statement
- "Senate races are candidate vs. candidate battles, and we'll win because we have the far superior candidates."
