Republicans see opportunity in Harris presidential run after Biden exit

Republican strategists and donors said Sunday they're not worried about Vice President Harris becoming the new Democratic nominee, even though they believed their chances of defeating President Biden were at an all-time high.

The Republicans, who for weeks have been salivating at the potential for Biden to drag down other Democrats on the ticket, acknowledged Harris represents a different kind of challenge. 

But they said they think they can tie Harris to Biden's policies and that other Democrats would represent bigger threats to GOP nominee former President Trump. 

“[Pennsylvania Gov. Josh] Shapiro, [Arizona Sen. Mark] Kelly et al would scare me. She does not scare me,” one Republican operative said of Harris.

Shapiro and Kelly — both of whom endorsed Harris to be the presidential nominee on Sunday — have a track record of winning in swing states. And a recent memo from Democratic polling group BlueLabs found that they performed better than both Biden and Harris in swing states in test match-ups against Trump, who officially accepted the GOP presidential nomination at last week’s Republican National Convention.

“But they’ll never toss aside the sitting Black female VP for a white guy,” the Republican operative added.

Harris is not yet the Democratic nominee for president. But Biden has endorsed her to take his spot atop the ticket, and several potential challengers have already thrown their support behind the vice president.

According to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ average of polls, Harris trails Trump by 2 points nationwide, a margin that grows to almost 6 points if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is included. She also has a 37.7 percent average favorability rating, compared to 41.3 percent for Biden.

Republicans tell The Hill they think her image is underwater in key battleground districts.

John Ullyot, a Republican operative who was a senior adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign, said that both Biden and Harris are “very weak candidates.” 

“But Kamala is arguably easier to run against because on the signature issue of immigration she was a complete disaster and she now has to answer for being dishonest with the American people about Biden’s mental state,” Ullyot said, referencing her being tasked by Biden to address the root causes of migration from countries in Central America.

Republicans are rushing to tie Harris to Biden and accusing her of misrepresenting the 81-year-old Biden’s mental acuity.

“It’s even worse than an old man who’s losing his mental acuity because you can’t really blame him for doing that. But if Kamala, as she did — she’s the one who’s right next to him every day, and she clearly covered that up, covered up his mental state,” Ullyot said.

And Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said that Republicans will run on the same policy points whether the candidate is Biden or Harris. 

“Simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic won't alter the outcome,” O’Connell said, adding that “the same disastrous Harris/Biden policies persist — rampant inflation, an open border, rising crime, and global instability.”

As much as they bash Harris, though, Republicans face new risks with Biden’s exit.

Republicans who have spent months bashing Biden for his age are now the ones backing a 78-year-old candidate against the 59-year-old Harris.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) outlined the challenge for Republicans at a Politico event hosted at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week before Biden stepped aside: “If and when they make the switch, everything is going to change. It’s going to get very close in a lot of those tighter states,” Sununu said, adding that independents disillusioned with a Trump-Biden race could reward Democrats for picking a new nominee.

And Brian Seitchik, a Trump campaign alumnus, said that Harris is "a bit of an undervalued stock."

“While everyone talks about her [presidential] campaign in 2019 … didn't even get to the first vote in Iowa, she did have two very good moments in that campaign: Her launch in Oakland was actually pretty good, and she had one of the most memorable debate moments in recent years,” Seitchik said.

He was referring to Harris confronting Biden in the first primary debate in 2019 about his previous stance on desegregation busing policies, detailing her own experience and saying: “That little girl was me.”

Harris was increasingly in the spotlight after Biden stumbled through a disastrous June 27 debate performance, prompting a slew of Democrats to call on the president to step aside as the nominee. Those wishes came true Sunday, when the president said he would no longer seek the 2024 Democratic nomination. 

Biden quickly endorsed Harris, who was widely seen as his heir apparent, to be the presidential nominee — and a wave of Democrats followed. Others like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have so far remained silent on whom they’d like to see at the top of their ticket.

Democrats will have to tread carefully, if they do decide to rally around someone other than Harris given the optics of choosing someone over the current vice president, who could be the first Black and South Asian woman nominated as Democrats’ presidential pick.

But the overwhelming consensus among Republicans is that if they can’t go up against Biden, Harris is the most favorable of the other options.

When asked whom he would like to see Trump run against, Trump donor Dan Eberhart said Harris. 

“She carries all of Biden’s baggage and has no record of winning swing states,” Eberhart said. “I don’t think the Democrats have helped themselves.” 

Brett Samuels contributed.