President Biden’s decision to abandon his reelection bid and the emergence of Vice President Harris as the leading contender for the Democratic nomination has vulnerable Senate Democrats scrambling to defend themselves from renewed GOP attacks on their record.
Biden’s greatest vulnerability was his age and doubts about his fitness for office, but the silver lining for Democrats was that Biden’s biggest problems were confined to him as a candidate and did not have a substantial impact on the senators’ vote. Democrats, according to polls.
But now incumbents like Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) are being pressed on their most controversial policy statements. Harris. , which dates back to the 2020 Democratic primaries.
Democratic senators worried that voters’ lack of enthusiasm for Biden would hurt Democratic turnout in Senate swing states.
Democrats don’t know for sure whether Harris, as their presidential nominee, will drive young and minority voters to the polls in significantly greater numbers than Biden would have done in November. But they are generally optimistic that she will have an energizing effect on the party, noting that she raised $81 million during her first 24 hours as a candidate after Biden dropped out of the race.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) on Monday distributed a memo to Senate Republican campaigns highlighting controversial elements in Harris’ record, ranging from immigration and border policy to “Medicare for All” and opposition to the pipeline. Keystone XL and fracking.
Jason Thielman, executive director of the NRSC, wrote in a memo to campaigns that Harris “creates a strong downvote opportunity for Republicans.”
“Kamala Harris’s endorsement is an endorsement of her extreme agenda, and Harris is arguably a greater threat to the Democrats’ Senate majority than Joe Biden,” he wrote.
Of the Democratic incumbents in tough races, Brown, Casey, Rosen and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) supported Harris for president.
Only Tester had not endorsed Harris as of Monday afternoon.
Tester last week urged Biden not to seek re-election and expressed his support for an open nomination process.
Senate Republicans, however, pointed out that Tester encouraged Harris to run for Senate in 2015 when he was chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).
Senate Republican strategists are focusing on Harris’ vice presidential track record as a “border czar.”
They are highlighting Harris’ opposition, while in the Senate, to the Trump-era health order known as Title 42, which was used to block migrants from entering the country, and her suggestion that Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be rebuilt “from scratch”.
Senate Republicans say Harris’ opposition to fracking will be an issue in the Pennsylvania Senate race, where Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) is comfortably ahead of his Republican opponent, Dave McCormick.
They are also highlighting his past support for the Green New Deal touted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (RN.Y.), his praise for the $150 million cut in police funding in Los Angeles, and his call to “reimagine” the role of the police.
Tommy Garcia, a spokesman for the DSCC, said the change in the Democratic ticket will not have a substantial impact on Senate races, where Republicans are “stuck” with “flawed” candidates.
“Senate Republicans are in crisis because they are still stuck with the same flawed recruits and toxic agenda that has left them trailing Senate Democrats this entire cycle. Senate races are battles between candidates and candidates, and we will win because we have far superior candidates,” said the spokesperson.
Other Democrats say that while Republicans will try to attack Harris’ statements and positions from 2019 and 2020, when she ran in a crowded primary for the Democratic nomination, she can run based on her more moderate record as a member of the Biden administration.
“She is in the mainstream of the Democratic Party. When she was attorney general in California, progressives criticized her for being a police officer. When she ran for Senate, they said she wasn’t liberal enough. When she ran for president, progressives weren’t really on her side,” said Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank.
“What she has now is a three-and-a-half-year track record as vice president in which she can talk about helping to reduce crime, plummeting homicide rates, border crossings falling like a rock, an economy which is the envy of the free world,” he said. “That’s the case she can make. This is the case she will have to present.
Some Democratic senators, however, in recent weeks have been reluctant to join the push to expel Biden from the ticket due to the unpredictable impact of the vote.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) stopped short of endorsing Harris on Monday but said he would meet with her soon.
“She is quickly gaining support from grassroots delegates from one end of the country to the other. We look forward to meeting in person with Vice President Harris soon as we collectively work to unify the Democratic Party and the country,” he said in a statement to House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY).
Senators who resisted efforts to impeach Biden argued to colleagues privately that despite the president’s low approval rating and poor performance in battleground state polls, he was not unseating Democratic Senate incumbents.
These Biden allies warned that Harris would become the nominee if Biden dropped out and could become a liability for Democratic Senate candidates, according to a person familiar with the caucus’ internal discussions.
Recently, every Democratic candidate was ahead of their Republican opponent in high-quality, internal public polls, except Tester, who is running head-to-head with Republican Tim Sheehy.
Now, the warnings from two weeks ago are resonating as Republican strategists comb Harris’ record for ammunition to use in Senate races.
The NRSC memo distributed Monday highlighted that Harris was ranked by GovTrack.us as the most liberal senator in 2019.
He cited Harris’ role as Biden’s “border czar” and his promise in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries to try to decriminalize illegal border crossings, something most Democratic presidential candidates also supported at the time, with the exception of Senator Michael Bennet (D-Col.).
It noted his statement in 2018 that Congress should review the country’s immigration system and perhaps “start from scratch” by eliminating the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
He pointed to his support for a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants already in the country, which has been a cornerstone of Democratic immigration policy since the Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform in 2013.
Senate Republicans are also citing Harris’ 2019 statement that as president she would support abolishing the filibuster to pass comprehensive climate change legislation and her 2019 co-sponsorship of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) proposal .) to expand Medicare to cover all Americans.
They will try to brand Democratic candidates with Harris’ initial 2019 endorsement of abolishing private health insurance as part of a broader plan to expand Medicare, something she later rejected. Harris later said that she misheard a question on the subject at one of the presidential debates.
Harris’ past positions have caused heartburn among some top Democratic donors, who wanted Biden to stay in the race.
Democratic donor John Morgan announced on social media platform X that he would not raise money for Harris and told The Hill he thinks she will lose in November.
“You have to be excited or hoping for a political appointment to ask friends for money. I am neither. Now it’s the others’ turn,” Morgan wrote in X.
Morgan said he would have preferred to see Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) or even Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), who left the Democratic Party to become an independent, leading the ticket.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
