WASHINGTON.- Republican leaders are advising party members not to use overtly racist and sexist attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris as they and former President Donald Trump’s campaign adjust to the reality of a new Democratic challenger less than four months before the election.
In a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday, National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Chairman Richard Hudson, a representative from North Carolina, urged lawmakers to limit their criticism of Harris for her role in the Biden-Harris administration’s policies.
“This election is going to be about policies, not people,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters after the meeting.
“This is not personal to Kamala Harris,” he added, “and her ethnicity or her gender has nothing to do with this at all.”
Johnson said both Trump and Harris have a history of White House politics, and said voters can compare how families fared under Trump to how they are doing now under Biden.
“She is the co-owner, co-author, co-conspirator of all the policies that got us into this mess,” Johnson said.
Biden announced Sunday that he was dropping out of the race. In a memo on the state of the race Tuesday, Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio argued that the The fundamentals of the campaign have not changed now that Harris seems increasingly likely to be the Democratic nominee.
“Democrats replacing one nominee with another does nothing to change voter discontent over the economy, inflation, crime, open borders, housing costs, not to mention concerns about two wars abroad,” he wrote. “More importantly, voters will also learn about Harris’ dangerously liberal record before she became Biden’s ally.”
According to a person familiar with the conversation — who was granted anonymity to discuss it — Hudson told participants at Tuesday’s meeting that the NRCC is focusing on how Harris is even more progressive than Biden and essentially “owns” all of the administration’s direction.
Sen. Steve Daines, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, echoed that criticism, calling Harris “too liberal.”
“She’s not an Irish Catholic girl who grew up in Scranton. She’s a liberal from San Francisco,” Daines said.
Trump made similar points in a conversation with reporters on Tuesday.
“She is just like Biden, but much more radical. She is a radical leftist person and this country does not want a radical leftist person to destroy it. She is much more radical than he is,” he said.
“So I think it should be easier than Biden because he was slightly more conventional, but not by much,” he added.
“Kamala Harris is every bit as weak, failed and incompetent as Joe Biden, and she’s dangerously liberal,” Trump’s campaign said in a statement. “Not only does Kamala have to defend her support for Joe Biden’s failed agenda of the past four years, she also has to answer for her own terrible record of weakness on crime in California.”
Source: With information from AP