Donald Trump has referred to as Kamala Harris a lunatic and a communist. He has stated she’s silly and that she solely lately “turned Black.” Trump has shared a submit crudely suggesting that Harris carried out sexual favors to advance her political profession. So on Tuesday evening, when the 2 main get together presidential nominees take the stage earlier than a debate in Philadelphia, does Harris shake Trump’s hand?
On a human degree, the reply is simple. However that is politics. As Harris has holed up in a Pittsburgh resort for 5 days, she and her group have needed to discuss by every thing from knotty Center Jap coverage inquiries to wardrobe selections to how she greatest avoids Trump’s makes an attempt to rattle her. And in individual, these gained’t be as simple to shrug off as they have been when Dana Bash requested Harris about Trump’s assault on her racial identification. (“Standard playbook. Subsequent query, please,” she responded.)
Refusing to shake the previous president’s hand at the beginning of the controversy can be a daring assertion, but it surely may additionally sign that Trump’s recreation has gotten on her nerves. “What a girl does, particularly in management roles, can lower each methods,” says Harris’s first vice presidential communications director, Ashley Etienne, who additionally served as a prime adviser to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “I take into consideration Nancy standing up and pointing her finger at Donald. You look robust and like you possibly can tackle Goliath, or persons are like, ‘She’s not a pacesetter—she’s a bitch.’ That’s what they’re engaged on now—how do you let these issues roll off of you?”
“The profit she has now could be that folks type of neglect: Fox Information went after [Harris] insanely aggressively the primary 12 months I used to be working for her,” Etienne added. “She began to construct up a resistance then. I can’t think about these items lands like it could have the primary 12 months.”
The private stuff could transform comparatively easy for Harris to deal with in comparison with questions on her document—not essentially from Trump, who has been unable to string collectively a coherent, substantive line of criticism, however from ABC’s moderators, Linsey Davis and David Muir, who’re positive to press Harris on why she’s deserted the positions on immigration, fracking, assault weapons buybacks, and Medicare for All that she took when operating for president 5 years in the past. “That’s simple,” says Bakari Sellers, a South Carolina Democrat who’s near Harris’s marketing campaign. “These concepts of 2019—that’s not the place the nation is at present. And while you’re president of america, you must govern the place persons are. The very best instance is the immigration invoice. It was filed by probably the most conservative United States senators we now have, and went by the method and was handed, as a result of that’s how authorities is meant to work and that’s the place the general public is.” Which might be a nice, pragmatic reply. Higher nonetheless can be if Harris have been to say she’s discovered and grown throughout her 4 years working in and across the White Home—not like her opponent, who’s caught previously and incapable of adapting, until it advantages him instantly.
Even trickier—and extra necessary within the view of Harris’s advisers—shall be attempting to each reward President Joe Biden and separate herself from him, particularly as Trump makes an attempt responsible her for the downsides of Bidenomics. “She’s acquired to indicate she’s completely different than Biden,” a Harris adviser says when requested about her group’s prime debate precedence. Harris must reveal she understands the budgetary stresses of the common voter and make a persuasive case that, as president, she will decrease the prices of lease, well being care, and meals. Drawing a distinction with Trump’s nonsensical reply final week about childcare and tariffs could assist. However Harris’s crew is extra involved with having her reveal her personal fluency and relatability on the problem. “She will discuss rising up middle-class with hardworking folks trying to get forward, and the obstacles folks face at present,” a Harris insider says. “Trump can’t.”
Biden’s marketing campaign strained for a 12 months to make Trump the main focus of the 2024 race. The trouble failed, largely due to anxieties in regards to the president’s age, which Biden confirmed within the worst approach throughout his personal debate in late June. Now, with the race a useless warmth within the polls, opinions of Trump set in stone, and Harris the comparatively unknown focus, the Democratic nominee’s process is completely different: She should reassure sufficient of the voters who haven’t made up their minds that she will deal with the massive job and ship the modifications Biden didn’t. “You don’t really want to persuade the bottom,” Etienne says. “A very powerful constituency has acquired to be the center, the 15% that’s tuning in to get their reply about her.” Harris will little question name out Trump’s lies, and he or she’ll discuss him as a divisive hazard to the nation, hitting some notes that ought to hearten progressives. However on coverage and elegance, Harris will spend many of the evening paddling her canoe straight to the middle of the lake.
