True Strength
Getting specific on substance & style to win the middle
The Harris for President campaign is out with its first policy-focused ad. It’s a doozy.
Take Away Opponent’s Strength
NFL pregame shows always play up how teams have to take away the strengths of their opponent. Bill Belichick won eight super bowls by applying a “subtle, but crucial difference”: you can’t just generically address the other team’s strength, you have to isolate the strengths and weaknesses of each individual player.
Immigration is the GOP’s star player. Voters rank it as their top issue, and largely trust Republicans on the issue more than Democrats. As we wrote in CNN,
A Gallup poll in April found that, for the third month in a row, immigration was the top problem facing the country. Only 37% of Americans approved of (Biden’s) performance on the border while 61% disapproved.
In this first big policy ad, Kamala doesn’t just go on offense on immigration as a generic issue; she gets specific: “investing in new technology to block fentanyl” and “spending more money to stop human traffickers”. And the ad flips this Democratic weakness around by highlighting how Trump opposed those specific measures.
Where do those specifics - and contrast with Trump - come from? The Bipartisan Border Bill, led on the Democratic side by Senator Chris Murphy.
“It’s True” on the Border
The most memorable line on immigration this year was also the highlight of the State of the Union, which elevated Trump’s blocking of the Bipartisan Border Bill:
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) gave a solemn nod and mouthed “it’s true” when Biden ran down a list of immigration priorities that would have been addressed by a bipartisan package negotiated by the Oklahoma Republican.
As soon as Biden mentioned the stalled reform bill, cameras immediately panned to Lankford, who was swiftly abandoned by his party after the months-long effort caved with the loss of support from key Senate Republicans.
Mitch McConnell doubled down on Trump's disruption of the border bill this week, saying “We all felt the border was a disaster … and then our nominee for president didn’t seem to want us to do anything.”
This bipartisan consensus on Trump’s role in killing the border bill is, well amazing. Here’s Murphy:
It's still kind of amazing to me that Republicans are so honest that Trump told them to kill the toughest border security bill in decades (negotiated with border hawk Republicans!) because Trump wanted the border to be a mess because it helps him politically.
Murphy joined us on stage at the inaugural WelcomeFest on Tuesday, and emphasized the policy stakes in his conversation with Matthew Yglesias.
But the political stakes are also very real. Murphy was on Fox News Sunday this morning to “tell some hard truths” about Kamala’s record. Daily border crossings are now lower than at the end of Trump’s term1, and that over the past two years migration has dropped 50% from the three Central American countries where Kamala said “do not come.”
Progressive Lies
As we noted last week in Center Out Contrast, this is not the record the progressive left wants to play up. And progressive groups - including in Murphy’s home state - raised objections to his bipartisan leadership.
But the Bipartisan Border Bill was both good policy and good politics. The type of common sense compromise that voters want - even those voter demographics that we’re often told will be opposed to moderate policy.
A highlight of WelcomeFest was a conversation moderated by Josh Barro with Rachel Janfaza, Lauren Harper Pope, and Olivia Julianna on how nonprofit advocacy groups misrepresent key constituencies. As Democrats have lost ground with youth voters, Black voters, and Hispanic voters, the overreach of the far left over the past decade becomes even more clear.
Flywheeling
More highlights from these WelcomeFest conversations to come. Huge thanks to the hundreds who joined us in person in DC on Tuesday for this inaugural gathering. While POLITICO termed it a meeting of the “DC elite”, our team (who came in from six different states) was most excited to meet readers who came in from states far & wide for learning and community.
We’ve written before about the Flywheel concept, where the center left ecosystem accelerates across policy, community, fundraising, elected officials, etc. The WelcomeFest room was giving a collective turn of the flywheel. And when you see the Harris for President ads on immigration, remember the substance is as important as the style - no policy leadership (over progressive objections) by Senator Murphy, no Bipartisan Border Bill.
PS Republicans for Harris launched today with former Trump White House officials, GOP governors & 16 former GOP members of congress. We had been critical of the DNC and Biden campaign’s lack of outreach to winnable GOP endorsers. So this is great to see. While Mitch McConnell and other current Republican Senators blame Trump for not focusing on policy, you can join thousands of Republicans who’ve signed up just in the last few hours to campaign for Kamala. Follow on Twitter here.
PPS WelcomeFest featured nearly half of the House candidates on Welcome’s Win The Middle slate. To give that flywheel another push give here.
Unlawful border crossings have dropped for five straight months, at lowest levels since September 2020
I can't remember the last time that a dead bill was *this* important.
Senator Murphy, I salute you.
Great piece, Liam.
And the Welcomefest event was top drawer.