Senate GOP casts ‘weird’ Kamala Harris as ‘San Francisco radical’ in new memo

The campaign arm of Senate Republicans is advising candidates to tie their Democratic opponents to Vice President Kamala Harris’s “extreme agenda” as she consolidates support to become the next Democratic nominee for president.

Jason Thielman, the executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, released a memo Monday arguing President Joe Biden’s exit from the 2024 race has created a “strong down-ballot opportunity for Republicans.” 

“Kamala Harris owns the Biden Administration’s baggage and is an avowed radical,” Thielman said in the memo, obtained by the Washington Examiner. “An endorsement of Kamala Harris is an endorsement of her extreme agenda, and Harris is arguably a bigger threat to Democrats’ Senate majority than Joe Biden.”

The memo, released one day after Biden endorsed Harris as his successor, represents a dramatic pivot for Senate Republicans. The NRSC had been highlighting Biden’s mental fitness following a disastrous debate in which he appeared frail and lost his train of thought, but Thielman told his colleagues that Republicans “must be ready to shift gears” following the Democratic shake-up.

Part of that shift is dredging up what the NRSC calls Harris’s “weird” behavior, linking to a supercut of her laughing at “inappropriate moments.” Previously, Republicans had been focused on Biden’s gaffes.

But most of the memo focused on Harris’s record. She was rated one of the most liberal senators before assuming the vice presidency in 2021 and embraced legislation such as Medicare for All and an end to cash bail. 

“Candidates should not be shy about aggressively tying their opponents to Kamala Harris’ extreme agenda,” Thielman said, using Harris’s career in California politics to dub her a “San Francisco radical.”

Democrats are betting their vulnerable incumbents can run independent of the presidential ticket. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee alluded to polling that shows GOP candidates consistently behind in battleground Senate races.

“Senate Republicans are in meltdown mode because they are still stuck with the same flawed recruits and toxic agenda that have left them trailing Senate Democrats all cycle long,” a DSCC spokesperson said in a statement. “Senate races are candidate vs. candidate battles, and we’ll win because we have the far superior candidates.”

Nonetheless, Republicans are attempting to rebut the perception their candidates were better off with Biden at the top of the ticket. Thielman argued in the memo that Biden’s cognitive decline was difficult to message in Senate races while noting Harris’s inability to gain momentum in the 2020 Democratic primary for president.

Trump leads both in national polling taken before Biden dropped out of the race.