WASHINGTON – Now we have Donald Trump announced Senator JD Vance as his running mateThe Biden campaign is ready to paint the Ohio Republican as “extreme” and merely an extension of Trump’s own positions and record, according to two people familiar with the thinking behind his re-election effort.
Vance’s position on abortion will be a key issue for the Biden campaign, these people said, because of his views on accepting the results of the 2024 election, regardless of who wins.
“This is a litmus test for Donald Trump,” said one person familiar with the campaign’s thinking.
Biden campaign officials also plan to remind voters of offensive comments Vance has made about Trump in the past, according to people familiar with the campaign’s thinking. For example, Vance called Trump “unfit for our nation’s highest office” in the New York Times op-ed in 2016. To wit, the rapid response director of the campaign he quickly tweeted Fox News presented a timeline of Vance’s past attacks on Trump, including comparing him to Hitler.
The strategy is designed to try to reduce the likelihood that Trump’s choice could help him win over undecided voters or tap into constituencies he hopes will do better in 2024 than four years ago.
In an official statement, Biden campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillion emphasized Vance’s opposition to abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act, and said Trump would help enact it.Project 2025,” right-wing plan for Trump’s second term.
“Donald Trump chose JD Vance as his running mate because Vance will do what Mike Pence won’t on January 6: bend over backwards to allow Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law, for the American people,” O’Malley said. Dillon.
In an interview with MSNBC, Vice President Kamala Harris reviewed the main theme of the campaign, calling it a “rubber stamp” on Trump’s agenda if elected.
“I think it’s clear that there is a litmus test. And he will choose someone who will be more loyal to him than his country,” Harris said.
Harris’ advisers say he doesn’t plan to reach out directly to the new Republican vice-presidential nominee, instead focusing on who runs the ticket. But they said he had already begun preparing for the vice presidential debate, although two of the most important factors – when it would take place and who his opponent would be – had yet to be determined.
Most voters usually do not rush the choice of vice president and vote based on who is at the top of the ticket. But the candidates tried to use their candidate options to widen their appeal. For example, Biden has promised to choose a black woman as his running mate in 2020. Vance may appeal to certain voters in the Midwest. And the goal of the Biden campaign is to convince voters not to look more closely at Trump because of his choice of running mate.
Campaign officials have expressed some concern that Trump’s more unconventional choice, especially if he chooses a woman, could reduce the effectiveness of the Biden campaign’s attack on the GOP ticket on abortion rights. With the field narrowed to three male candidates, the campaign has solidified its strategy, officials said.
Even before Trump’s announcement, Biden’s allies argued that all the finalists for the role related to the former president, particularly on two key issues that the Biden campaign hopes will motivate voters this November: reproductive rights and the preservation of democracy.
Trump has repeatedly made false claims about winning the 2020 election, which Biden won.
By selecting Vance, Trump put his nominee in the unique position of having to vote in the Senate to confirm the results of the November election.
Vance repeated his false claims that Trump won the 2020 election, citing major discrepancies and ballot tampering without evidence. He also said that on January 6, 2021, unlike then-Vice President Mike Pence, he would seek to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“If I were the vice president, I would say to Pennsylvania, Georgia and many other states that we should have a large number of voters, and I think the United States Congress should fight from there,” Vance said. interview on ABC’s “This Week” in February. Vance recently said he would only vote to confirm the results “if there is a free and fair election.”
On abortion access, Biden aides assessed that all of the top candidates Trump has vetted for the post support Vance’s restrictions and the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe Wade.
Vance said on CNN last year that many Americans “don’t want abortion bans,” while also opposing Ohio’s constitutional amendment last year that included protections for abortion in the state.
The issue is likely to be a major focus of any vice presidential debates for Harris, as he has argued against Roe v. Since overturning Wade, Biden has been the administration’s most vocal surrogate on reproductive rights.
When asked about his potential challenger, Harris pointed out that Trump’s then-vice president split from Pence because he did not support his efforts to nullify the 2020 election, emphasizing that each of the finalists supports abortion restrictions, according to people familiar with the matter. with comments.