With Biden out of the race, Trump-Vance campaign looks for new strategy

WASHINGTON (TND)– In a single social media post, President Joe Biden turned the 2024 presidential race upside down. Now, the Republican apparatus will try to pivot and go after Biden's possible successor: Vice President Kamala Harris.

In the days leading up to Biden's announcement that he was dropping out of the race, speakers at the Republican National Convention – from congressmen to party operatives– ramped up their attacks against Harris, trying to tie her to the president's record.

In one of its first emails since Biden exited the race, the Trump campaign called Harris "Biden 2.0," going after her on issues of inflation and crime.

Kamala Harris is just as much of joke as Biden is. Harris will be even WORSE (sic) for the people of our Nation than Joe Biden. Harris has been the Enabler in Chief for Crooked Joe this entire time," Trump campaign senior advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement.

A challenge for Trump and vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance will be finding ways to attack Harris without alienating women voters and voters of color.

George Washington University Legislative Affairs program director Casey Burgat said he's confident "it's going to get ugly."

We have seen this playbook before with Hillary Clinton in 2016 and then a laundry list of woman throughout his administration and ever since, right, that he has a real problem with trying to walk the fine line between disagreeing with someone without being disagreeable," Burgat said.

In a statement, the Harris campaign called Republicans "terrified" to run against Harris.

“Vice President Kamala Harris has held criminals accountable her entire career – and Donald Trump will be no different. Vice President Harris has dedicated her career to making life better for working people – while Trump only cares about himself. That’s the contrast the American people will see over the next 106 days," spokesperson Ammar Moussa said.

Another tactic Trump has started deploying is to sow doubt about Harris's legitimacy as a candidate. In a Truth Social post-Monday morning, Trump wrote, "They stole the race from Biden after he won it in the primaries — A First! These people are the real THREAT TO DEMOCRACY! (sic)" And in a new ad, the Trump campaign accused Harris of a plot to hide the president's mental decline.

“They will just raise questions, in their voters’ minds especially, just to kind of de-credit and delegitimize the process here," Burgat said. "So it’s important to point out that nothing nefarious has gone on, nothing illegal has gone on. This is the process when you have a candidate of his own choosing drop out of the race this late in the game.”