The Trump campaign has absolutely stolen the thunder over Vice President Kamala Harris’s lack of a policy platform on her campaign website. In a clever political move, they’ve created and launched a website detailing what they claim are Harris’s policy positions.
This strategy is particularly brilliant given the Vice President’s complete lack of transparency. Harris, who became the presumptive Democratic nominee just over a month ago, has yet to hold a formal press conference or sit-down interview to outline her vision for a potential Harris administration.
The absence of a clear policy agenda on her official campaign website has left a vacuum that the Trump campaign was eager to fill. In fact, the Trump campaign has defined Harris’s positions for her, literally shaping the narrative around her candidacy.
“Kamala Harris has yet to tell voters what her policies are, so we thought we’d help them out,” a Trump campaign national press secretary told Fox News Digital.
The website, kamala2024policies.com, paints a picture of Harris as an extreme left-wing candidate. It claims she wants to “open the borders, raise taxes, and free criminals.”
🚨🚨🚨Trump Campaign Launches Harris Policy Website.https://t.co/8P3RnJhc62
-Fighting to Set Murderers Free
-More “Bidenomics”—it’s “Working,” Rising Costs are Nothing to Worry About!
-More Taxes to Ensure the Middle-Class Pays Their “Fair Share”
-Abolish Borders
-Bring Back…— Truth Patriot (@Truth2Everyone) August 21, 2024
The website also contains a donate button that incredibly enough directs the user straight to a Trump donate page.
Historically, presidential candidates have made their policy positions readily available to voters. For example, in 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden’s team crafted a 110-page policy document. Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign website featured 200 distinct policy proposals.
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The Trump campaign’s current website includes a “platform” tab with a 20-point policy agenda.
President Trump has clear campaign policies. These are his top 20 promises to the American people. ⬇️
Kamala Harris has 0⃣(zero) policies on her website. She is an empty figure standing in place for Democrats. pic.twitter.com/n7KScpE8W1
— Americat 🇺🇸 (@catmurphy209) August 14, 2024
The contrast between these examples and Harris’s current approach is striking. By not clearly articulating her own policies, Harris has left herself vulnerable to having her positions defined by her opponents.
The Trump campaign’s website focuses on key issues that are likely to resonate with voters, such as the economy, immigration, and healthcare. For instance, it claims that under a Harris administration, “the middle-class will need to pay more” in taxes.
Harris’s team has pushed back against criticism of her media strategy. Her communications director, Michael Tyler, told CNN that Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, have been “busy” traveling the country and holding campaign rallies. However, as CNN’s Jim Acosta pointed out, “a campaign rally isn’t really a press conference.”
The effectiveness of the Trump campaign’s strategy plays off of the struggles some Harris supporters have had in identifying her accomplishments.
For example, Bernard, an independent voter from New York, told Fox News Digital, “I really don’t know much of what she did.”
While Harris has received strong endorsements from high-profile Democrats at the ongoing Democratic National Convention, including former Presidents Obama and Clinton, these endorsements don’t substitute for a clear policy platform. Obama’s praise of Harris’s work as a prosecutor and attorney general, while positive, doesn’t address the current policy vacuum.
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Trump campaign’s creation of a policy website for Harris is a masterful political move. It exploits a significant weakness in Harris’s current campaign strategy and attempts to define her positions before she does. There will surely be backlash but in this moment he got the best of her.