Publicly, Trump’s campaign has insisted that Harris replacing Biden as the Democratic leader was no game changer, arguing that it shares responsibility for public discontent with Biden’s leadership. Vance told reporters on July 22, a day after Biden dropped out of the race, that there was no difference between running against Harris and Biden.
“I don’t think the political calculus changes at all,” Vance said. “We were against Joe Biden’s open border, Kamala Harris’s open border. Kamala Harris supported the new green scam. Kamala Harris, frankly, covered for Joe Biden even though it was obvious that he was mentally incompetent for a very long time.”
Trump adviser Jason Miller said in a July 22 interview with Fox News: “The Democrats are jumping out of the frying pan into the fire a little bit. And they may have solved one problem with Joe Biden, but they inherited a whole new problem with Kamala Harris.”
Trump himself has expressed nostalgia for running against Biden (“He will always be my first choice”) and at the same time dismissed Harris as “worse than Joe.”
Vance, however, gave a different assessment to donors Saturday before joining Trump at a rally in St. Cloud, Minn. He said Harris is less well-known than Trump or Biden, and so Republicans should work to shape people’s opinions of her.
“We have a unique opportunity, but we also have a unique challenge, because let’s be honest, 10 days ago, both candidates running for president, everybody had an opinion about them. Love them or hate them, everybody has an opinion about Donald Trump and Joe Biden after the last eight years,” Vance said. “But Kamala Harris, people don’t really know.”
Vance said the campaign would try to define Harris based on her past positions, which he said included opposing fracking, praising the “defund the police” movement and supporting decriminalizing unauthorized border crossings. Harris’ campaign says she will not ban fracking. She denounced “defund the police” after becoming Biden’s running mate, and the current administration opposes decriminalizing border crossings.
At the fundraiser, Vance recounted asking Trump senior adviser Susie Wiles how the race had changed, and he said she responded that she was more confident Trump would win because people liked Trump’s policies better than Biden’s.
Two national polls taken since Biden’s withdrawal have shown Trump and Harris within the margin of error, erasing Trump’s previous lead over Biden in the same polls.
Vance spokesman Will Martin said in a statement Monday: “Poll after poll shows President Trump is leading Kamala Harris as voters wake up to his weak, failed and dangerously liberal agenda. His far-left views are even more radioactive than Joe Biden’s, especially in key swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.”
Meryl Kornfield contributed to this report.
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