LA CROSSE, Wis. (AP) — Joy Olson proudly wore a “Make America Joyful Again” button Thursday as she waited in line to attend a Kamala Harris rally. But that doesn’t mean the 70-year-old retiree with the happiest of names wants the Democratic candidate to shy away from standing up to Republican Donald Trump.
“I’m tired of her being so nice sometimes,” said Olson, who called Trump “evil and scary.” She added: “I hope she calls him out.”
That’s exactly what the vice president is doing as the campaign enters its final days.
Less than three weeks before Election Day, Harris is ending her campaign and painting a bleak vision of the country if Trump is sent back to the White House. Among other things, she broadcasts video clips of the Republican candidate’s more alarmist rhetoric at her own rallies.
“Donald Trump will become increasingly unstable and unhinged and will stop at nothing to claim unchecked power,” Harris said Thursday in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
It’s a far cry from the “joy” that accompanied her rise to the top of the Democratic ticket this summer. As that surge of enthusiasm has faded, Harris’ campaign is relying on ever sharper attacks on Trump to encourage her supporters to vote and win over the miniature universe of persuadable voters who have remained behind in the highly battleground states.
At her rally in La Crosse, she pointed out that Trump had falsely claimed this week that the violent insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was “a day of love.”
“There have been attacks on law enforcement,” she said, recalling the insurrection in which Trump supporters tried to block the counting of electoral votes that formalized President Joe Biden’s victory. “The American people are exhausted by their gaslighting. Enough! We’re ready to turn the page!”
“Roll the clip,” she said a week earlier, directing a rally audience to watch a video in which the former president calls to eradicate an “enemy in the country.”
And she told radio host Charlamagne Tha God during a radio town hall this week, “Yes, we can say” that Trump threatened to bring fascism to the country.
Since taking the helm of the Democratic nomination in behind schedule July, Harris and her team have been torn between the competing priorities of introducing the vice president to voters and turning the race into a referendum on the former president after Biden’s debate flop put Democrats in the Democrats has brought spotlight.
In the first weeks of her campaign, she tried to tell voters about her career as a prosecutor, tell stories about her upbringing and lay out her vision for how she would govern if elected.
Harris was no stranger to criticizing Trump, but the urgency and force of her warnings about him have noticeably increased in recent days.
“He wants to send the military after American citizens. He wants to prevent women from making decisions about their own bodies,” Harris said in La Crosse. “He wants to threaten fundamental freedoms and rights, such as the freedom to vote, the freedom to be safe from gun violence, the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water, and the freedom to love openly and proudly the one you love .”
It marks a return to the guiding strategy that Biden’s advisers first outlined a year ago as he planned his re-election and that is now being implemented by his hand-picked successor.
“People are reacting negatively because it works,” said Republican strategist Brendan Buck, a former top aide to Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan. “Harris had to make himself an acceptable alternative, but ultimately the coalition was always going to be an anti-Trump coalition rather than anything affirmatively pro-Harris.”
Trump’s team has noticed it too. “Kamala’s entire campaign is based on lies about President Trump,” his campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Some of the attacks on Trump are part of Harris’ explicit push to push Republican voters to cross party lines, such as her rally Wednesday in Pennsylvania with dozens of anti-Trump Republican politicians. Her team sees it as a unique opportunity for Harris to expand her support base and tap into a group of voters who have rejected Trump in the past.
Former Biden communications director Kate Bedingfield said attacking Trump gives Harris access to independent and even moderate Republican voters and shifts the political discussion to where it is stronger – protecting American democracy – and away from issues where Republicans are often seen as stronger, such as immigration and the economy.
“Bringing the challenges of this election to the forefront in recent weeks could help motivate a portion of voters who would otherwise be fed up with the process,” she said.
At a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Thursday evening, Harris sought to single out Trump, who called himself the “father of IVF,” as her campaign portrays the Republican as a threat to women’s reproductive health.
Greg Swagel, a 76-year-old retired yacht builder from Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, showed up to Harris’ rally in Green Bay wearing a Green Bay Packers sweatshirt and said he “completely” agreed with Harris becoming more aggressive in her rhetoric .
“She has to put (Trump) in his place,” Swagel said. “He lies.” He insults people. As long as she doesn’t become him in the sense that she degrades herself.”
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Miller reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Chris Megerian in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Todd Richmond in Green Bay, Wisconsin and Colleen Long in Washington contributed to this report.
