Few seem to miss Joe Biden at the head of the Democratic ticket as much as Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump. “When a champion is in a fight, you don’t do that… change fighters,” he lamented about his White House rival’s withdrawal. The rise of Kamala Harris to replace the president, and the wave of enthusiasm among Democratic voters, has forced Republicans to change their strategy to try to regain the initiative. But the big question is whether Trump will stick to it.
On the eve of their convention in Chicago next week, Democrats continue to enjoy the momentum gained by the arrival of Harris and the appointment of their number two, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Meanwhile, Trump is seeking to capture the media attention he has enjoyed for months. On Monday, he participated in a conversation with Elon Musk on the social network owned by the tech magnate, X, formerly Twitter. Two days earlier, he appeared at a rally in Montana — a state with a strong Republican leaning — in support of the candidate for senator Tim Sheehy, where he spoke for two hours. And last Thursday, he hurriedly called a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
Trump also returned to X on Monday, after a one-year absence. “Are you better off now than you were during my presidency?” he asks, evoking a similar question from Ronald Reagan in his campaign against Jimmy Carter in 1980. “Our economy is in tatters. Our border has been erased. We are a nation in decline. Let’s make the American Dream AFFORDABLE again. Let’s make America SAFE again. Let’s make America great again!” he declares, in a message that within three hours had already been viewed thirteen million times.
For Republicans, the change in the Democratic ranks was a hard blow. Their strategy was focused on confronting a Biden characterised as an excessively old president, in questionable health and without the capacity to make decisions. The polls gave Trump a comfortable lead over his rival, not only at the national level, but also – something much more important – in the seven swing states, key to deciding the final result.
With Harris’s appointment, the Republican campaign quickly drew up a new strategy: to portray the candidate, who was very unpopular as vice president until Biden withdrew on July 21, as a radical progressive, soft on crime and illegal immigration. A profile that underlines, in Republican eyes, the selection of Walz, whose state has implemented during her mandate measures such as free school meals, affordable access to university or support for transgender minors.
The idea was to keep in mind that Harris’s rise in the polls comes, above all, from the enthusiasm of the Democratic base disenchanted with Biden, and not from new voters who have been undecided until now. And with that in mind, to emphasize what Republicans consider to be errors by the Biden administration regarding the management of the economy or the immigration system, which over the last few years saw record numbers of irregular entries before the numbers fell in 2024 after the introduction of tougher measures. The strategy sought to link Harris to those problems and argue that the vice president’s program – who has yet to present her economic priorities, something she has promised to do in the coming days – will only make them worse.
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The number two on the Republican ticket, JD Vance, launched that strategy on Sunday in a flurry of televised interviews in which he accused his Democratic rivals of being “anti-family.” According to the Ohio senator, Harris is the one who has really been “pulling the strings” in the government, insinuating that Biden is too weak. “If not her, then who?” said Vance, when asked about this statement on CNN. In a speech in Michigan last week, he insisted on holding her responsible for border policy: “I am angry at what Kamala Harris has done to this country and to the southern border.”
The Republican plan, however, has one important imponderable factor: its own candidate. Trump, who while clearly leading in the polls, has shown himself to be disciplined and has stuck to his party’s message, has opted for his own strategy, completely different and focused on personal attacks.
In his latest public appearances and in his messages on social media, the former president has attacked Harris’s intelligence, calling her “crazy” and accusing her of “going black” to suit her political needs. He has also falsely accused the Democratic campaign of manipulating images showing a crowd of supporters welcoming the plane in which the vice president is travelling. These are messages that dazzle his supporters, but his own strategists warn him that they could lose him sympathy among independent voters.
Speaking to CNN, former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy urged her to “stop worrying about her ratings” and “start putting pressure on her on her policies.” “Go out there and start making the case against her, and use things that she has said herself.”
On Monday, the Republican candidate launched a new line of attack, accusing the vice president of imitating him and trying to sound “more like Trump than Trump,” after she proposed this weekend, at a rally in Las Vegas, that tips not generate taxes, an initiative that the former president had already proposed months ago and very popular in Nevada, the state with the highest proportion of workers in the hospitality and restaurant sector.
“Kamala Harris has changed her position on almost every policy she has supported and lived by her entire career, from the border to tipping,” the real estate mogul denounced on his social networks. “She sounds more like Trump than Trump, copying almost everything… she is deceiving the American public, and she will change her position again. I will Make America Great Again!! I will not change my position!” he exclaimed.
But he also seemed to want to heed his strategists’ advice. On X, he posted a series of videos in which he used Harris’s statements to brand her as a “San Francisco radical.”
For now, Democrats are likely to remain in the spotlight. This week, Walz will make his solo debut at a series of fundraising events. On Thursday, Biden and Harris will appear together for the first time at a campaign rally, in Maryland. And on Monday, the Democratic convention begins, where the vice president will formally accept her party’s presidential nomination. Then comes a week of reduced activity, due to the Labor Day holiday on September 2, which marks the end of the political summer.
It will then be time for the first televised debate between Trump and Harris, on September 10 and organized by ABC News. For both of them it will be an opportunity to maintain or regain the initiative. An opportunity that, in this campaign full of surprises, could prove decisive.
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