Harris sprints to the middle ahead of 2024 home stretch

Vice President Kamala Harris has jettisoned her old views to appeal to more moderate voters, though she emphasized her “values have no changed.”

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is doing everything she can to sprint to the middle in a bid to convince undecided voters and woo Republicans in the mad dash before Election Day.

Labor Day historically marks the beginning of the final push ahead of November. This election has already featured more upheaval, particularly President Joe Biden’s decision to abandon his run, than most in recent memory. In a little more than 60 days, the nation will select its next president. Pennsylvania, the state that looms largest, will kick off early voting on September 16. According to a Gallup poll, only about 1 in 5 adults nationwide have yet to decide who to support.

Despite Harris’ clear momentum, the race remains too close to call. According to RealClearPolitics’ national polling average, Harris led by 1.8 percentage points on Friday. The Washington Post’s average of key swing states showed the biggest leads were in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where Harris is up by 3 points — hardly a comfortable lead. Four other states had a leader of less than 1 point, underlying the razor-thin nature of the contest.

The holiday weekend is also around the time when more Americans tune into the race for the White House, though Gallup found that many voters are already paying more attention to the contest than ever before.

“If people are giving more thought, those turned out to be higher turnout elections and where we’re standing in August — we’ve never got a higher percentage who have given quite a lot of thought to the election in August,” Gallup Senior Editor Jeffrey M. Jones told B-17. “This looks like it could be another high-turnout election if not surpassing what we saw in 2020, which was the highest in over 100 years.”

Harris is running away from her 2020 primary campaign.

In her first interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris confirmed that she has changed her views on immigration. As a Democratic presidential primary candidate in 2019, she said she would support decriminalizing the border. Her stance made sense, given that many of her primary opponents were also in a race to appease progressives by taking liberal stances on guns, criminal justice, race, and immigration.

At the time, Harris’ past as a prosecutor spawned memes of “Kamala’s a cop.” Now she proudly leans into her background as ​​San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general to buttress her stances on immigration.

“I believe there should be consequence,” Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash. “We have laws that have to be followed and enforced that address and deal with people who cross our border illegally. And there should be consequence. And let’s be clear, in this race, I’m the only person who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations who traffic in guns, drugs, and human beings.”

Harris reminding voters that Trump sunk a bipartisan immigration solution makes him look pretty bad.

Smart approach.pic.twitter.com/LAk3EdeDPw

— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) August 30, 2024
Polls have consistently shown voters trust Trump more on immigration. He has almost singlehandedly changed the politics around the topic. His campaign has also tried to tie Harris to the issue, given her responsibility for dealing with the root causes of migration, deeming her “Biden’s border czar.” The White House never gave Harris that title, but some initial coverage did refer to her as a “border czar.”

It’s not the only issue Harris has changed his stance on. She no longer wants to ban fracking, a critical issue in Pennsylvania. Harris also no longer supports Medicare for All, Bernie Sanders’ signature position that loomed over the 2020 Democratic primary field.

And in a show of just how serious she is about reaching out to Republicans, Harris committed to naming one to her Cabinet. Neither Biden nor Trump continued the once-common tradition of naming a member of the opposite party to a Cabinet post.

Trump’s team isn’t buying the new Harris, pointing to her own statements that her “values have not changed.” The former president and his allies have tried to brand Harris as a California liberal, but their efforts have been undermined by Trump’s own attacks — mostly notably, Trump suggesting Harris was not really Black.

“Kamala confirmed she’s still a Radical Left lunatic,” a Trump campaign summary of the CNN interview read, highlighting Harris’ value quote.

Trump showed potential signs of moderation but then quickly retreated

Trump once worried about how the historic reversal of Roe could affect his fellow Republicans, The New York Times previously reported. Recently, it appeared that the former president recognized the issue’s lasting strength and was trimming his sails as a result.

Polls have long shown that abortion rights are one of Democrats’ largest cudgels to wield against the former president. Two swing states, Arizona and Nevada, will have ballot measures this November that propose adding abortion protections to their respective state constitutions.

In a series of statements, Trump tried to signal a more moderate approach despite appointing the three conservative justices that allowed for the landmark reversal of Roe v. Wade. Trump wrote on Truth Social that his administration would be “great for women and their reproductive rights.” He also reiterated his opposition to Florida’s law which bans most abortions after just six weeks of pregnancy, seeming to indicate that he would support a ballot measure this November that seeks to overturn the controversial law.

Key voices in the antiabortion movement and on the Christian right began to sound the alarm. Erick Erickson, an influential conservative radio host, said if Trump lost the election, it could be traced to his murky comments about the Florida measure the sounded close to an endorsement.

As the outcry began to grow, Trump abruptly came out against the Florida ballot initiative on Friday after months of hemming and hawing over it.

“I think six weeks, you need more time than six weeks,” Trump told Fox News. “I disagreed with that right from the early primaries. When I heard about it, I disagreed with it. At the same time, the Democrats are radical because the nine months is just a ridiculous situation where you can do an abortion in the ninth month.”

By voting against Amendment 4, Trump’ sets up the possibility that Florida’s current ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy will be left in place. He has long opposed that law and criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis for his role in its creation.

At the same time, Trump argued Amendment 4 would go too far. According to the measure’s language, it would add the following language to the state’s constitution: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”

Florida’s vote is the biggest test case for Trump’s newfound belief that states should decide the future of abortion rights. In theory, this means some voters will support greater access to abortion, which is the antithesis of what the evangelical right wants to achieve.

The entire episode highlights that in a dash for the middle, either candidate can only go as far as their base is willing to let them or risk incurring their wrath.

“Donald Trump just made his position on abortion very clear: He will vote to uphold an abortion ban so extreme it applies before many women even know they are pregnant,” Harris said in a statement released by her campaign slamming Trump’s announcement.