Kamala Harris has quickly erased several of the advantages Donald Trump enjoyed over Joe Biden when it comes to the key personal attributes voters prize in a president. But the most formidable personal quality voters see in the former president – his perceived strength – still looms as a critical obstacle Harris must overcome to win the White House.
Voters have long viewed Trump as a strong leader, capable of keeping them safe, and as they grew more skeptical about Biden’s physical and mental capacity, Trump’s advantage grew to towering proportions this year.
But Harris’ energy and strong, confident speaking style at her boisterous rallies over just the past three weeks ago have stirred optimism among Democrats that she can reset the debate over strength and neutralize, or at least reduce, Trump’s traditional edge on that measure.
“American politics over the last decade has been defined by a frame that Donald Trump has imposed on it and has worked to his benefit, which is this strength frame,” said Democratic pollster Evan Roth Smith, who is leading the ongoing “Blueprint” project to measure voter attitudes about key themes in the 2024 presidential race. “Kamala Harris entering the picture and the sea change that has occurred in this race … has [produced] this sigh of deep relief among voters that maybe we can close this chapter in American history. And that includes discarding the political frame around strength that Donald Trump imposed on our politics. Not just the man himself, but the frame.”
But to do that, it’s likely Harris will need to rebut an intensifying Republican effort to portray her as weak. That offensive is likely to center on issues relating to Americans’ physical security, including crime, immigration and national defense. Trump’s plan for blunting Harris’ momentum, some Democrats believe, could reprise elements of the 1988 presidential campaign that George H.W. Bush, and his fearsome campaign manager Lee Atwater, ran to devastatingly portray his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, as a weak, soft-on crime liberal.
“If they decide to go in that direction and they use all the tools at their disposal, and they lie as much as Trump does every day, then it could be a very powerful attack,” said long-time Democratic consultant Tad Devine, who served as a senior strategist in the Dukakis campaign. “I think the Harris campaign has to be prepared for it.”
The two sides are already hotly contesting the terrain of strength. Spokespeople for the Trump campaign routinely describe Harris as weak; the principal super PAC backing Trump recently released an ad describing her positions on criminal justice issues as “dangerously liberal.” In an interview on Fox News, Trump implied that Harris’ gender made her too soft to stand up to other world leaders. “She’ll be so easy for them. She’ll be like a play toy,” Trump insisted. “They’re gonna walk all over her.”
Harris, in turn, is airing an ad in swing states that touts her credentials on the two issues Republicans are most determined to use against her. “Kamala Harris has spent decades fighting violent crime,” the ad begins, before concluding: “Fixing the border is tough. So is Kamala Harris.”
Convincing Americans that the vice president is weak is so important for Republicans partly because, on a variety of important personal attributes, multiple polls show that voters are judging Harris more favorably than they did Biden — and, in many instances, more favorably than they do Trump.
