President Biden’s decision to withdraw his candidacy for re-election and the fact that Vice President Harris has become the front-runner for the Democratic nomination are forcing vulnerable Senate Democrats to fend off up-to-date Republican attacks on their record.
Biden’s biggest weakness was his age and doubts about his suitability for the office. However, there was also some good news for the Democrats: According to polls, Biden’s biggest problems were restricted to his role as a candidate and had no significant impact on the subsequent elections of the Democratic senators.
But now incumbents such as Senators Jon Tester (Democrat, Montana), Sherrod Brown (Democrat, Ohio), Bob Casey (Democrat, Pennsylvania) and Jacky Rosen (Democrat, Nevada) are being asked about Harris’ most controversial policy statements dating back to the 2020 Democratic primaries.
Democratic senators had feared that voters’ lack of enthusiasm for Biden would hurt Democratic turnout in swing states.
The Democrats do not know exactly whether Harris, as their presidential candidate, will represent the minorities and youthful voters significantly more voters than Biden would have done in November. But they are generally confident that they will energizing effect to the party, pointing out that she raised $81 million in the first 24 hours of her candidacy after Biden dropped out of the race.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) distributed a memo to Republican Senate campaigners on Monday highlighting controversial aspects of Harris’ policies, ranging from immigration and border policy to Medicare for All health care reform to her opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline and fracking.
Jason Thielman, executive director of the NRSC, wrote in a memo to campaign teams that Harris “gives Republicans a strong chance of winning the next election.”
“Supporting Kamala Harris is supporting her extreme agenda, and Harris is arguably a greater threat to the Democratic Senate majority than Joe Biden,” he wrote.
Of the Democratic incumbents in tough races, Brown, Casey, Rosen and Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) have endorsed Harris for president.
Only Tester had not yet endorsed Harris as of Monday afternoon.
Tester last week called on Biden not to run for re-election and advocated an open nomination process.
However, Senate Republicans pointed out that Tester encouraged Harris to run for Senate in 2015 when he was chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).
Republican senators’ strategists are focusing on Harris’ record as vice president and “border-czar.”
They highlight Harris’ opposition to the Trump-era health order known as Title 42, which fought in the Senate and was used to deny migrants entry into the country, as well as her proposal to rebuild Immigration and Customs Enforcement “from the ground up.”
Senate Republicans say Harris’ opposition to fracking will be an issue in the race for the Pennsylvania Senate seat, where Senator Bob Casey (D-Penn.) is comfortably ahead of his Republican opponent Dave McCormick.
They also highlight her past support for the Green New Deal touted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (R-N.Y.), her praise for cutting police funding in Los Angeles by $150 million, and her call to “redefine” the role of the police.
Tommy Garcia, a spokesman for the DSCC, said the restructuring of the Democratic slate would have no significant impact on the Senate races, where Republicans are “stuck” with “flawed” candidates.
“Senate Republicans are in collapse mode because they are still stuck with the same flawed candidates and toxic agenda that have kept them behind Senate Democrats all election cycle. Senate elections are battles between candidates, and we will win because we have the far superior candidates,” the spokesman said.
Other Democrats say that while Republicans are trying to attack Harris’ statements and positions from 2019 and 2020, when she ran for the Democratic nomination in a crowded primary, her more moderate record allows her to run as a member of the Biden administration.
“She was in the middle of the Democratic Party. When she was attorney general in California, progressives criticized her for her conduct as a police officer. When she ran for Senate, they said she wasn’t liberal enough. When she ran for president, progressives didn’t really get behind her,” said Jim Kessler, vice chairman of policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank.
“She’s been able to talk for three and a half years as vice president about how she can reduce crime, drastically reduce the murder rate, drastically reduce border crossings and build an economy that is the envy of the free world,” he said. “That’s the argument she can make. That’s the argument she must make.”
However, some Democratic senators have been hesitant in recent weeks to join the campaign to exclude Biden from the candidacy because the impact on subsequent elections would be unpredictable.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) stopped on Monday to support Harris, but said he would meet with her soon.
“She is rapidly gaining support from grassroots delegates from one end of the country to the other. We look forward to meeting with Vice President Harris in person soon as we work together to unite the Democratic Party and the country,” he said in a statement with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (R-NY).
Senators opposing efforts to remove Biden argued privately to colleagues that the president, despite his low approval ratings and impoverished performance in the polls in swing states, is not dragging down Democratic incumbents in the Senate.
These Biden allies warned that Harris could become the nominee if Biden drops out, and that it could become a burden for Democratic Senate incumbents who are lower on the ballot, according to a person familiar with the internal caucus discussions.
In recent times, every Democratic incumbent has been ahead of his Republican challenger in internal and high-quality public polls, with the exception of Tester, who is neck and neck with Republican Tim Sheehy.
Those warnings from two weeks ago are now resonating as Republican strategists scour Harris’ past for ammunition in the race for the Senate seat.
The NRSC memo released Monday highlighted that Harris was ranked the most liberal senator of 2019 by GovTrack.us.
The reason given was Harris’ role as Biden’s “border czar” and her promise in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries to work for the decriminalization of illegal border crossings. With the exception of Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), most Democratic presidential candidates at the time also supported this demand.
It cited her 2018 statement that Congress should reform the country’s immigration system, perhaps “starting over” by shutting down Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
She highlighted her support for a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants already in the country, a cornerstone of Democratic immigration policy since the Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform in 2013.
Senate Republicans also point to Harris’s 2019 statement that as president she would support eliminating the filibuster tactic to pass comprehensive climate change legislation and her role in signing Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) proposal to expand Medicare to all Americans.
They will try to link Democratic candidates to Harris’ initial support in 2019 for eliminating private health insurance as part of a broader plan to expand Medicare, which she later distanced herself from. Harris later said she misunderstood a question on the issue at one of the presidential debates.
Harris’ past positions have caused heartburn among some major Democratic donors who wanted Biden to remain in the race.
Democratic donor John Morgan announced on social media platform X that he would not raise money for Harris and told The Hill that he believes she will lose in November.
“You have to be enthusiastic or hope for a political appointment to ask friends for money. I am neither. Now it’s others’ turn,” Morgan wrote on X.
Morgan said he would have preferred to see Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D) or even Senator Joe Manchin (W.Va.), who left the Democratic Party to become an independent, at the top of the ballot.
