AP
The Dem lawmaker who mounted a rare longshot primary challenge against President Biden over deep concerns about his age is warning VP Kamala Harris to change her message in the election’s waning days.
Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), 55, urged Harris, 60, to reconsider her sharp focus against her GOP foe, former President Donald Trump, 78, in her final arguments as Nov. 5 nears and to recalibrate toward a message more inviting to voters.
“A billion dollars will have been wasted on losing voters by condemnation versus winning them by invitation,” Phillips lamented on X.
“She just needed to be clear about what she believes, what she will do differently than Biden, and offer common sense solutions to our problems. Instead….,” he added, pointing to a headline from the New York Times: “Starring in Kamala Harris’s Closing Argument: Donald Trump.”
Phillips gave up his leadership post as co-chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee to challenge Biden in the 2024 Democratic primary out of concern that his party was barreling toward an electoral defeat with the faltering, 81-year-old president at the top of the ticket.
Ultimately, the Minnesota Democrat was unsuccessful in the primary, but was seemingly vindicated in July when a revolt within his party ensued against Biden over consternation about his age and culminated in him bowing out of the race.
Phillips cheered when Harris soared to the top of the ticket, but still publicly pushed the party to have more of an open process to fill Biden’s shoes.
Now his home-state Democratic governor, Tim Walz, is on the ticket as Harris’ vice presidential pick.
Since locking down the nomination, Harris has attempted to make some overtures to Republican and independent voters.
She pledged to appoint a Republican to her cabinet, and she has stumped with GOP turncoats such as former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in recent weeks.
On Wednesday, Harris also sat down for a combative interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, during which she tried to avoid doomed remarks akin to Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment in 2016.
Clinton infamously used the phrase to describe half of her then-presidential opponent Trump’s supporters.
Additionally, Harris has attempted to lurch to the center, making dramatic flip-flops from her stances during the era of her ill-fated 2020 presidential campaign, including reversals on a ban on fracking, a national jobs guarantee, decriminalization of illegal border crossings and more.
One thing Harris appears to have resisted is pressure from Democratic strategists to highlight her differences with Biden.
Earlier this month, she suggested to ABC News’ “The View” that there is “not a thing” she would’ve done differently than Biden other than naming a Republican to her cabinet.
Still, during her interview with Baier, Harris underscored that “my presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency.” But she’s stopped short of giving many specifics.
“To be very candid with you, even including Mike Pence, vice presidents are not critical of their presidents,” Harris later told NBC News, referring to Trump’s veep and describing the approach as a “tradition.”
Democrats have long been very anxious about Trump’s chances of roaring back into the White House on Nov. 5. Harris has dubbed herself the “underdog” in the race, and polls appear to have trended slightly in Trump’s direction over the past two weeks or so.
Harris has a 0.8 percentage-point edge over Trump nationally in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of multicandidate polls.
Trump is up in the RCP map of battleground states.