The new Trump-Harris contest for the presidency is now a week old. So how are the candidates doing so far? For Vice-President Harris—so far, so good. For former President Trump—so far, so bad. Unless and until Trump and the GOP develop an effective issues-oriented strategy to counter the rising Harris tide, the presidential election will be Harris’s to lose.
Last week I noted that Harris’s biggest obstacle to waging a successful presidential campaign was her status as a national joke. Her trademarked gibberish and her unnerving cackle had helped make her even less popular than President Biden.
Yet Harris is emerging as a potentially formidable candidate after all. She enjoys a 95% approval rating among Democrats in general and has won enough delegate pledges to practically guarantee her nomination for president with no significant opposition by a united Democratic National Convention/lovefest. Although polls had reported that Trump had opened up a 5% lead over Biden nationwide, they’re reporting a statistical dead heat between Trump and Harris.
Perhaps Trump and the GOP can be pardoned for being caught flatfooted by the sudden metamorphosis of Harris and thus unable to immediately respond effectively to the new challenges she creates. After all, they believed, quite logically if not ultimately accurately, that they’d be confronting President Biden. But now that the Democrats have switched out candidates, the GOP must develop an effective strategy playing to their strengths and Harris’s weaknesses. This can best be done by launching an issues, and issues-only, strategy. To that end, Trump and the GOP should take the following steps:
First, they must jettison the single-most boneheaded idea anyone could have “thought” up: That Biden should be made to resign or otherwise be removed from office with the 25th Amendment. To do so would automatically make Harris the President or at least the Acting President, and confer on her all the advantages that normally come with incumbency. Granted, incumbency is not proof against electoral defeat, but an incumbent president does enjoy a prestige and command of resources which could conceivably give her an edge in a close election. So this idea, which never should have come in the first place, should go. Now. Period.
Second, they must forego personal attacks on Harris. Harris’s once-perceived weaknesses—her penchant for speaking gibberish and her weird and grating cackle—are more and more being perceived as the lovable eccentricities of a genuinely authentic person, so such attacks, by highlighting these traits, could well boomerang. Besides, she’s now speaking with a more-focused and better organized style—one that Trump should master.
Thirdly, they must tie Harris to the least popular of Biden—Harris policies, including the economy, inflation, crime, and immigration and border security. Given Harris’s boasting of her participation in administration decision making, this is perfectly fair. If she truly helped make these policies in the first place, there’s nothing wrong with making her own them. Besides, you can be certain that Harris and the Democrats will go after the policies of the first Trump administration. So fair is fair.
Fourth, they must emphasize Harris’s support, as a Senator and Vice-President, for policies such as the Green New Deal, police defunding, private health insurance abolition in favor of Medicare-for-All, electric vehicle mandates, and the banning of fracking and off-shore oil drilling. Each of these policy proposals commands some degree of support among the public, but powerful challenges can still be mounted to successfully undermine public support for these policies and those who support them. Pennsylvania Republicans, ins support of their nominee for U. S. Senator, have already produced a brilliant commercial doing just that, using Harris’s own recorded words. Trump and the national GOP should study that commercial and follow suit.
Fifth, they must learn to counter Harris’s use, so far effective, of abortion rights to rally Democrats. Harris has accurately credited (or blamed) Trump for creating the Supreme Court majority which overturned Roe v. Wade, but she’s falsely accusing the GOP of favoring a nationwide abortion ban. Trump and the GOP should remind the voters that Trump (who’s never truly been pro-life anyway) is now saying each state should decide, democratically, its own abortion policy, and challenge Harris to explain what’s wrong with that. For good measure, they can also make use of the fact that while most voters oppose any limits on abortion during the first trimester, majorities nonetheless support some limits on abortion during the second and third trimesters. With that in mind, they can challenge Harris to say what limits to abortion, if any, does she support—or does she support abortion right up to the moment of birth?
There’s no guarantee that an issue-oriented campaign will put Trump back in the White House, but it should at least bolster his chances for victory in November. However, its implementation requires Trump himself to develop the focus, organization, and discipline to adopt it. To date, there’s little evidence that he’s able or willing to abandon the self-absorbed, disorganized, and verbose meanderings which are his trademark. Until Donald Trump develops the discipline to focus on issues rather than personal grievances and personalities, he’ll remain his own worst enemy. And as long as Kamala Harris maintains her own newly found self-discipline, she’ll remain her own best friend—with a growing possibility that she’ll be the next President of the United States.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville since 1987 and taught politics and government at Tarleton for 36 years, retiring in 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990-2024). He was Mayor pro-tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Stephenville
Economic Development Authority since 2018 and as chair of the Erath County Appraisal District’s Appraisal Review Board since 2015. He is also a member of the Stephenville Rotary Club, the Board of Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts’ Pecan Valley District. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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