WASHINGTON: Republican leaders are warning their members against overtly racist and sexist attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris as they and former President Donald Trump's campaign team struggle to adjust to the reality of a new Democratic rival less than four months before Election Day.
At a closed session of House Republicans on Tuesday, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Richard Hudson, R-N.C., urged lawmakers to stop criticizing Harris for her role in the Biden-Harris administration's policies.
“This election will be about politics, not personalities,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters after the meeting.
“This is not a personal matter for Kamala Harris,” he added, “and her race or gender has nothing to do with it.”
The warnings highlight the new risks Republicans face in running against a Democrat who would be the first woman, first Black person and first person of South Asian descent to win the White House. Trump in particular has a history of racist and misogynistic attacks that could alienate key groups of swing voters, including suburban women, as well as voters of color and younger voters that Trump's campaign is courting.
The admonitions came after some Trump members and allies began portraying Harris, a former district attorney, attorney general and senator, as a “DEI” candidate – a reference to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
“Intellectually, she's the last of the best,” Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman said in a television interview. “I think she was hired by DEI. And I think that's what we're seeing, and I just don't think they have anyone else.”
Since Biden announced his exit from the campaign, Republicans have rolled out a long list of attacks against Harris, including trying to link her to Biden's most unpopular policies and his handling of the economy and the southern border. Trump campaign officials and other Republicans are accusing Harris of being involved in a cover-up of Biden's health problems and are scrutinizing her record as a prosecutor in California to portray her as soft on crime.
Johnson said both Trump and Harris have a track record of White House policy, and he said voters can compare how families fared under the Trump administration and how they are faring now under Biden.
“She is a co-owner, co-author and co-conspirator of all the policies that have brought us into this mess,” Johnson said.
Biden announced his withdrawal from the race on Sunday. In a memo on the status of the race on Tuesday, Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio argued that the fundamentals of the campaign have not changed, even if Harris is becoming increasingly likely as the Democratic nominee.
“Democrats replacing one candidate with another does NOTHING to change voters' dissatisfaction with the economy, inflation, crime, the open border, housing costs, not to mention concerns about two foreign wars,” he wrote. “Equally important, voters should also learn about Harris' dangerously liberal record before becoming Biden's partner.”
In a similar message, Hudson told members of Tuesday's meeting that the NRCC is focused on Harris being even more progressive than Biden and essentially “owning” all of the administration's policies, according to a person familiar with the conversation who was granted anonymity for the discussion.
Senator Steve Daines, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, echoed this criticism, calling Harris “too liberal.”
“She's not an Irish Catholic kid who grew up in Scranton. She's a liberal from San Francisco,” Daines said.
Trump made a similar argument in a phone call with reporters on Tuesday.
“She's just like Biden, but much more radical. She's a radical left, and this country doesn't want a radical left to destroy it. She's much more radical than he is,” he said.
“So I think it should be easier with her than with Biden because he was a little more mainstream, but not much,” he added.
Trump later claimed in an interview with Newsmax that Harris had “destroyed the city of San Francisco” despite leaving her job as district attorney there in 2011, calling her “the worst at everything.”
“Kamala Harris is as weak, failed and incompetent as Joe Biden – and she is also dangerously liberal,” the Trump campaign said in a statement. “Not only must Kamala defend her support of Joe Biden's failed agenda over the past four years, she must also answer for her own horribly poor crime record in California.”
Trump has a history of launching particularly harsh and personal attacks against women, from former Fox News host Megyn Kelly to his 2016 primary opponent Carly Fiorina to New York Attorney General Letitia James, who successfully sued him and his company for fraud.
In a harbinger of what may be to come, Trump took a swipe at Harris' poor performance in the 2020 Democratic primary in an Independence Day message on his Truth social network, adding: “That's not to say she isn't a 'highly talented' politician! Just ask her mentor, the great Willie Brown of San Francisco.” Harris dated Brown in the mid-1990s.
Strong and intelligent women who attack him seem to particularly get under Trump's skin, says Stephanie Grisham, a 2016 campaign aide who served for a time as Trump's White House press secretary before breaking with him after the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“She's going to really piss him off,” Grisham predicted, noting that if Trump is attacked, “he'll hit a thousand times harder. He won't be able to help himself.”
When it comes to women, she added, “His favorite tactic is to attack looks and call women stupid. That's his favorite tactic and I don't expect it to be any different this time.”
California Rep. Maxine Waters, a prominent member of the Congressional Black Caucus and one of the first Democrats to stand up to Trump, said she is well prepared for what lies ahead if Republicans focus the campaign on Harris.
“The first thing I think about is the attacks that are going to come from Trump and the right-wing MAGA wing – which have already started,” Waters told AP. “They're going to be nasty, they're going to be bad.”
She predicted that this approach could backfire for Trump.
“The danger is that he is so arrogant and selfish that he tramples on women and that backfires,” she said.
The dynamics on the debate stage could be further increased if Trump goes through with the debate with Harris as announced on Thursday.
Republican pollster Neil Newhouse said it was unlikely Trump would debate Harris in the same way he debated Biden – or the same way he debated his other female rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, in 2016.
“I don't think Trump can approach a debate against Kamala Harris with the same tone as he did with Hillary Clinton. Kamala Harris doesn't have the negative aspects of Hillary and she is a relatively new political face,” he said. “Caution may be in order.”
