Trump campaign is preparing to go to battle with Kamala Harris in 2024 campaign if Biden leaves: report
Majority of Democrats also believe current VP would be good nominee, according to recent poll
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The Trump campaign is reportedly already planning for a potential battle with Kamala Harris if Joe Biden decides to drop out of the 2024 race.
That’s included drawing up attack ads, poll-testing Harris’s vulnerabilities on various issues, and compiling opposition research, two individuals briefed on the matter told The New York Times.
The Trump camp’s thinking is that if Biden drops out, Harris will be the most likely replacement, given that the Democrats wouldn’t want to alienate the Black voters in their base by sidelining the nation’s first Black vice-president, the individuals told the paper.
The effort to plan for a Trump-Harris match-up predates even the Republican National Convention, according to the sources, with the Trump campaign reportedly planning out anti-Harris signs and videos that could’ve debuted at the RNC if the Democrats had announced a switch-up ahead of the event.
For the moment, Joe Biden remains committed to taking on Trump in November.
The president is currently at his beach house in Delaware recovering from a case of Covid.
That hasn’t stopped top Democrats from openly and privately speculating about his future and urging him to step down from his re-election campaign.
Nancy Pelosi reportedly told Biden he can’t beat Trump, and favors an open nomination process, rather than automatically elevating the vice-president to the top of the Democratic ticket.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, told MSNBC’s The Weekend on Saturday that the option of Harris taking the leading spot “gives me a lot of hope.”
“We have Vice President Kamala Harris, who is ready to step up to unite the party, to take on Donald Trump and to win in November,” she said. “Remember, 80 million people voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020 knowing that Kamala Harris would be ready to step up if needed."
A majority of Democrats, meanwhile, think Harris would do a good job as the party’s presidential nominee, according to a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.
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