The Republican party faces a new, perplexing challenge in making Donald J. Trump president again. Now, they confront a surge in enthusiasm for a Democratic candidate Biden could not generate. Let’s see how the Republicans found themselves in this predicament.
Vice President Kamala Harris bolted out of the gate.
A Trump campaign operative told The Bulwark at the Republican National Convention, “It’s just too good right now. We’re measuring the drapes.” Another journalist described the convention as a preview of a celebration of Donald Trump overwhelmingly beating President Joe Biden in November.
That was before Biden dropped out of the race and Vice President Kamala Harris secured two-thirds of the convention delegates needed to be nominated as the Democratic Presidential candidate. That’s more delegates than Biden had pledged to him before his debate.
Worse yet for the Republicans, within 24 hours of announcing her candidacy, her campaign received one hundred million dollars, more than Biden or Donald Trump had collected in a similar time frame. And, by the end of the first week, that amount doubled.
Most importantly, it represented an energetic base of support, attracting over 1.4 million grassroots donors and 100,000 signing up to volunteer within three days of declaring her candidacy. It grew to 170,000 within seven days.
Trump’s campaign was caught off guard.
In defense of Trump’s campaign overconfidence, many Democrats also were surprised by the groundswell of support for Harris.
Nevertheless, the Republican party now faces a new challenge—a surge in enthusiasm for a Democratic candidate that did not exist with Biden. The first Republican casualty was sidelining their more ambitious plan to saddle the Democrats with Biden.
For instance, the Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., bashed the idea that Biden could be replaced on the ticket because of campaign finance laws’ restrictions. After Harris became the candidate, they now intend to spend roughly $12 million per week through Labor Day on TV ads attacking her in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona.
Previously, House Speaker Mike Johnson warned that Republicans could challenge Kamala in states where the legal process does not allow replacing Biden with another candidate who did not win that party’s primary election. It was a non-starter since Biden ran with Harris as the V.P. candidate, and the Democrats voted for both.
Texas Rep. Chip Roy even filed a resolution last month calling on Biden Cabinet members to use the 25th Amendment to remove the president. To avoid Harris from filling the presidency if Biden was removed, Roy implied that she could be impeached if she knew about Biden’s declining health.
These Republican tactics appear as desperate moves to avoid forsaking their year-long expensive campaign against Biden.
Republicans claim the Democratic Party is not democratic.
They accuse Democratic Party elites of staging a coup. “They have subverted democracy [using the legal system] and are coronating the VP without a single vote,” said Republican pollster Robert Blizzard. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said Mr. Biden had “succumbed to a coup” from party elites and donors, ignoring millions of Democratic primary votes. Trump argued Democrats pressuring Biden to suspend his re-election bid was "an undemocratic move."
Biden opened the door to that charge by repeatedly citing the 14 million votes cast for him in state primaries as a reason to stay in the race before he withdrew. In a July 8 letter, he wrote, “The voters—and the voters alone—decide the nominee of the Democratic Party.”
However, Susan Stokes, who directs the Chicago Center on Democracy, said the rush “to support Ms. Harris reflects the determination of Democrats not to be consumed by a divisive internal fight with less than four months to go.” The most recent poll showed that 90% of Democrats felt that Biden made the right decision to not remain as their presidential candidate.
Nevertheless, JD Vance, Trump’s chosen Vice President candidate, said Harris was part of the “elite Democrats” meeting in “smoke-filled rooms” to throw Biden out of the race. Ironically, he also claimed she “lied” about President Joe Biden’s poor health, which would work to keep him in office. Vance will have difficulty arguing that Harris supported these contradictory objectives on the campaign trail.
Democrats must clearly articulate how party rules for choosing delegates and voting to nominate someone were followed, not broken. Every delegate was free to vote for whom they wished; they were not legally bound to any candidate. The delegates at the convention were the same; they were voted to attend the convention as enfranchised delegates from each state. No new candidates were added, and no existing ones were replaced.
Stokes said the Democrats’ adjusted procedure was “a rather minor point compared to a political party that will not accept a lost election.” She could have also added that a party defending those who attacked Congress while in session on January 6 is not an example of defending democracy.
Can Trump and his allies refrain from denigrating Harris as a woman or a Black citizen?
At his first rally after the attempted assassination on him, the rally crowd cheered when Trump conceded he was “not going to be nice” about Harris. He proceeded to call her “Lying Kamala Harris, the most incompetent and far-left vice president in American history.” He avoided racial or gender traits.
Nevertheless, Republican politicians have denigrated Harris in a manner that could alienate Black and women voters. Joe Perticone, a national political reporter at The Bulwark, reported that in a closed-door meeting, House Republican leaders requested their colleagues: When attacking Kamala Harris, please focus on policy, not race or gender.
Right-wing social media didn’t get that memo. According to the data firm PeakMetrics, within hours of Biden’s announcement, more than 11 percent of related mentions of Harris on X involved attacks related to her race or gender.
Harris, as the DEI vice president
Criticizing DEI policies has become a Republican mantra. The acronym DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion and refers to initiatives addressing discrimination against historically marginalized groups. Liberals are blamed for government and higher education for focusing too much on the issues of race, gender, and sexuality.
Speaker Mike Johnson cautioned Republican congressmen at their caucus meeting from attacking Harris based on her race or gender, such as calling her “a DEI vice president.” On leaving the meeting, he added, “This has nothing to do with race. It has to do with the competence of the person running for president.”
He didn’t mention previous public statements by Rep. Glenn Grothman and Rep. Tim Burchett. Grothman questioned if Democrats are sticking by her “because of her ethnic background.” Burchett also said that Harris was a “DEI vice president.” He claimed on CNN that Biden said he would hire a Black female for vice president.
Burchett needed to be more informed. In a 2020 debate, Biden stated he would "pick a woman to be vice president" without specifying her race. In a later interview with ABC News, Biden said he "didn't feel pressure to choose a Black woman."
In another 2020 interview, Biden mentioned that four Black women were among his potential running mates. Biden told MSNBC’s Joy Reid, “I am not committed to naming any (of the potential candidates), but the people I’ve named, and among them there are four Black women.”
By Trump supporters tagging Harris as a DEI candidate, the Trump campaign is opening itself up to being called racist, which doesn’t help the campaign’s strategy of appealing to Black voters.
Trump calling Harris a “radical left lunatic” politician will highlight Harris’s accomplishments.
Harris can ask her audiences, “Is providing laws that benefit needy students and homeowners the actions of a "radical left lunatic" politician? As the state attorney general, she won a $1 billion judgment against for-profit colleges that targeted low-income students. She also leveraged California’s economic influence to win $18 billion in debt relief for California homeowners from banks accused of improper mortgage foreclosures.
Trump will have to reconsider accusing Harris of lacking qualifications to be president, given his nonexistent government experience and checkered business record, including multiple felony convictions for falsifying business records.
Republicans also ignore Harris’s having beaten Republicans who were expected to win.
In 2010, she beat Republican Steve Cooley, a three-term Los Angeles County district attorney, to become California’s Attorney General. This victory ran counter to the Republican wave that year, which saw many Democrats defeated. She won despite a national political action committee spending $1 million attacking Harris’ record on fighting crime.
Trump will strike Harris on the crime issue because she refused to pursue the death penalty against a man who killed a police officer. However, she defended California’s death penalty system in court. And while she implemented training programs to address police officers’ racial biases, she also resisted getting her office to investigate certain police shootings.
Harris ran to the right of her opponent to become the San Francisco district attorney, so she knows how to appeal to crime-weary voters. Enough so that the San Francisco Chronicle endorsed her under the headline “Harris, for Law and Order.” Trump is not going to have an easy time framing Harris as being soft on crime.
Both candidates have to hone their messaging on the significant issues of immigration, inflation, and abortion.
Even though all polls show Harris is doing better against Trump than Biden, their margin of error leads one to conclude that this race is a statistical tie. Democrats take solace that the race has tightened despite polls coming after the assassination attempt on Trump, the festive Republican convention, and his MAGA-oriented VP pick.
Trump campaign staff explain the surge in Harris support as the usual increased enthusiasm after a new candidate is chosen—there’s nothing unique to fear from Harris.
Immigration, inflation, and abortion have been and appear to remain voters' top concerns. Trump and Harris are still refining their thrust and parry on these issues. Future debates will test their verbal skills in explaining why their positions are superior.
If Trump relies on his usual style of steamrolling out unsubstantiated claims, Harris has the skill, sharpened in courtrooms, to decimate them. The question is, can she communicate her positions without sounding condescending to non-Democratic voters?
Nick Licata is the author of Becoming a Citizen Activist and Student Power: Democracy and Revolution in the Sixties. He is also the founding board chair of Local Progress, a national network of over 1,300 progressive municipal officials.