Democratic convention energy, Harris hot streak making Republicans nervous

The energy emerging from the Democratic National Convention and Vice President Harris's hot streak is making Republicans increasingly nervous.

Thursday marked the culmination of what was unthinkable just a month ago: A coronation for a new party leader who Democrats are ardently behind.

Former President Trump and Republicans, meanwhile, are grappling with the whiplash of going from the predictions of a landslide just a few short weeks ago to surveys showing Harris has shaken up races up and down the ballot and closed the gap with Trump.

“In some of the swing states … people are becoming increasingly concerned that the momentum is moving in the wrong direction,” said one Senate Republican, adding that the nervousness among Republicans is “real” at this stage.

Just a month ago, Republicans were riding higher than at any point of the campaign after President Biden’s disastrous performance in a debate sent Democrats into a tailspin. Trump accepted the GOP nomination in Milwaukee, where lawmakers and delegates were bullish that the former president would not only return to the White House, but do so in a convincing manner — and polling backed them up.

Now that thinking is firmly out the door.

Democrats’ four-day gathering in Chicago prompted comparisons to the energy around former President Obama’s landmark 2008 presidential bid. It could also hand Harris another slight polling bump as the calendar turns to September after she closed out the convention with a fiery speech heavy on biography and history that also took the fight to Trump.

“They are beginning to realize this is a wrestling match. There’s not going to be any knockout punch and they’ve got to get the best grip they can find, and it’s all state specific,” the Senate Republican continued.

Democrats’ quick and complete acceptance of Harris came as a “big surprise” to the GOP shaking the earth beneath them in the process, the senator added.

“This is sort of when you have to slap the panic-first person in the foxhole and get them to focus again,” they said. 

The struggles can be seen in the roller coaster of Republican messaging against Harris, which has ranged from attacks on her race from Trump and his allies to pleas from others in the party to keep the lines of attack centered on policy disagreements.

GOP lawmakers have consistently argued that if the race becomes one about policy, they have a winning hand. If not, their chances take a hit. 

“We need to refine our message, and it’s not because there’s a lack of material,” one GOP operative said. “[President Biden’s] age was such a disqualifier for a lot of independents, for base Democrats who might not have been interested in showing up to the polls. Now, those same folks are able to get past that barrier and truly consider the choice in front of them.” 

“We need to be a little bit more specific in painting the vision for voters of what a Harris administration would look like,” they continued, “and holding her feet to the fire on the current problems that plague our country.”

Harris leads Trump nationally and in the key “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to polling averages from DDHQ and The Hill.

Despite Harris’s upswing in the polls, however, Republicans remain confident in their chances of winning back the Senate. In addition to flipping Sen. Joe Manchin’s (I) seat in deep red West Virginia, they only need to turn one seat in order to nab the majority, with all eyes on Montana.

According to three surveys taken in recent weeks, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) trails Republican Tim Sheehy by an average of 5 percentage points.

A win in increasingly-red Ohio would also do the trick, but the possibility of Bernie Moreno defeating Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is a jump ball, multiple GOP strategists told The Hill, despite the right-ward bent of the state. Trump won the state by eight percentage points in both 2016 and 2020.  

“A variety of outcomes exist in Ohio as it’s a state that has recently become pretty red, and Brown's tenure began before the state made its shift,” the GOP operative said about Brown, who won his seat in 2006. “They're used to voting for him and they might be less inclined to vote solely on who they want to control the Senate.”

But Harris’s rise has significantly harmed the GOP’s chances of pulling off in a number of battleground states with Democratic incumbents that were thought to be in play earlier this summer. That would limit their Senate majority ceiling to 52 seats.

The trio of Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) all hold leads in the high single-digits, according to recent polling averages, creating a tough road to hoe for their Republican challengers despite Trump being in a virtual tie with Harris in all three battleground states.

Republicans are also behind the eight-ball in Michigan and Arizona, where Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) hold an advantage over former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Kari Lake, respectively. 

While Rosen, Tester and Brown did not attend the Democratic convention, the remainder of swing state incumbents, along with Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), who is challenging Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), notably spoke at the event.

While Republicans expect Democrats and Harris to get a boost out of this week, they remain hopeful that the surge will not last beyond Labor Day and that the race will reset itself to become a dead heat until November.

“This is a jump ball. It was always going to be. We'll sort this out in two weeks and see where it all stands,” a second GOP operative said. “By no means does that mean I feel good. A month and a half ago, our team was riding high because their guy couldn’t string two sentences together, so that's what we're comparing it against. … It was never going to be that. 

There is one wild card: the planned Sept. 10 debate between Trump and Harris, especially after the late June event essentially knocked Biden out of the race for good. Republicans are trying to ready Trump for it, during which Harris could put her prosecutorial hat on and attempt to rattle him with talk about him being found liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll, and guilty of financial fraud. 

How the former president responds to that could speak volumes for the following weeks. 

“We have to prepare him for these sorts of attacks,” the Senate GOP member said. “I worry about whether or not somebody will have the chutzpah to say, ‘This is what these people are going to say to you. Don’t judge me for telling you what an enemy is going to say to you,’ but I hope they are.”