Donald Trump, Republicans scramble on messaging against Kamala Harris

After what was, by all accounts, a resoundingly successful Republican National Convention, the party appears to be over for former President Donald Trump and the GOP.

The weeks leading up to the RNC were good for Republicans. Very good.

President Joe Biden had suffered through an agonizing and, some would say, fatal debate performance. Democrats were divided over what to do, with calls for him to step aside growing by the day. Biden was slipping even further behind Trump in key battleground state polls. And experts were declaring he could no longer win.

In even better news for Republicans and Trump, Biden didn’t seem to care. He insisted he wasn’t going anywhere, dragging out the Dem deliberations and disastrous news cycle even longer, injuring his campaign even worse.

Then, there was a horrific assassination attempt on Trump at a Pennsylvania rally, vaulting him to practical sainthood among a constituency that’s already often compared to a cult.

Needless to say, he entered the RNC with massive tailwinds, and a party that, in contrast to Biden’s, was incredibly unified, electrified and focused.

What a difference a Sunday makes.

Just three days after the balloons came down in Milwaukee, Biden announced he was stepping down and swiftly endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris.

GOP loses focus

And suddenly Republicans aren’t so unified, electrified or focused anymore.

First, the Trump campaign has a new problem: age.

In that, it’s no longer a problem for the Democrats and is a new problem for Republicans. At a spry 59 years old, Harris is young next to 78-year-old Trump, and polls show most voters have confidence in Harris that they didn’t in Biden.

There’s also the fact that the finely tuned Trump campaign was designed to beat Biden — not any generic Democrat.

The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta, who was embedded with the Trump campaign for months, said that they’d been “praying Joe Biden doesn’t drop out,” fearing they’d have to abandon an operation “built to run a very specific race against a very specific opponent. ....”

Then, Trump’s selection of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance — another white guy from a state Trump won twice and is positioned to win again — was made when the campaign was feeling confident, doubling down on MAGA rather than addressing deficiencies on the ticket.

Now, campaign officials are reportedly lamenting Vance is not an appeal to swing state voters that Trump will need to win. “Most striking thing I heard from Trump allies yesterday,” said Alberta, “was the second-guessing of J.D. Vance — a selection, they acknowledged, that was [born] of cockiness, meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout rather than persuade swing voters in a nail-biter.”

And he’s poised to be a drag on the ticket, not a boon.

As CNN data guru Harry Enten pointed out, “He is the first guy … immediately following a convention, a VP pick, who actually had a net negative favorable rating that is underwater.” Since 2000, veeps have enjoyed an average of plus 19 points in favorability — Vance’s is a net negative six.

Finally, the GOP appears deeply divided over how best to attack Harris.

Some House members have run with an ill-conceived new talking point, that she’s merely a “DEI hire,” picked only because she’s a woman of color, and not a former prosecutor, attorney general, senator and vice president.

It’s not going over well — with other Republicans, who probably know that winning back suburban women and independents in swing states is the whole ball game.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called it “stupid and dumb,” while current House Speaker Mike Johnson warned his members, “This is an election about competing policies. It’s not about personalities.”

Even folks on Fox News, where original birtherism was crafted, hosts were bearish on the approach, saying the DEI attacks will “tick voters off.”

For his part, Trump is running the usual playbook, doling out childish nicknames like “Lyin’ Kamala” and “Laffin’ Kamala,” again, designed to amp up his fans, not draw in new voters.

In a show of real desperation, Rep. Elise Stefanik called for an emergency meeting of the House Rules Committee to take up a resolution to, essentially, let everyone know they don’t like Harris.

As Dem Rep. Jim McGovern said, “This is an emergency! Not an emergency meeting to fix the border, but an emergency meeting to bash Kamala Harris. That’s the emergency. Are you kidding me? The emergency is that Donald Trump is losing and they’re in a panic.”

Panicking indeed. Republicans and the Trump campaign are all over the map, simultaneously insisting that Dems are so incompetent that Biden should resign the presidency, while also insisting that they cleverly masterminded a coup.

They don’t have a long time to rejigger their campaign, especially if the GOP remains divided and undisciplined on how to run against Harris.

Gone is the giddiness. Gone are the good old days. As Biden might say, “Miss me yet?”

S.E. Cupp is the host of “S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.

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