Republicans will still use Biden’s record against down-ballot dems, and they’ll make new ones based on Harris.

Republicans say Harris has many of the same vulnerabilities that Biden had, apart from questions about age. Immigration was already a key part of the GOP battle plan, and the potential for Harris at the top of the ticket led to many news releases like one from Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, which said likely Democratic rival Debbie Mucarsel-Powell “endorsed Border Czar Kamala Harris’ open borders agenda that has led to the worst border crisis in American history.” On Monday, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who leads the House Republican Conference, said she will introduce a resolution to condemn Harris’ role as Biden’s “border czar” adding that she “and every elected Democrat owns this border crisis.” A review by FactCheck.org found that Harris never held the title of “border czar.” She was appointed by Biden in 2021 to lead an effort to “improve security, governance, human rights, and economic conditions” in Central America named the “Root Causes Strategy.” The strategy consisted of several actions intended to “address the root causes of migration” specifically from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, FactCheck reported. Rep. Richard Hudson, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the change at the top of the ticket doesn’t make a difference in Republican messaging. Harris would also be a drag on down-ballot races, he said. “Republicans are on the ascendency because the voters have decided that Biden-Harris policies have made them less safe and less prosperous, and so nothing’s changed,” he said.

‘San Francisco radical’ The National Republican Senatorial Committee released a memo Monday laying out arguments GOP candidates can use to attack “San Francisco radical Kamala Harris.” Those critiques include portraying the former prosecutor as a soft-on-crime liberal, by dredging up old interviews of her calling for an end to the filibuster to pass the Green New Deal and her 2019 call for single-payer health care coverage to replace private insurance. The memo also pokes fun of Harris’ “habit of laughing at inappropriate moments” and desire to ban plastic straws. “Kamala Harris creates a strong down-ballot opportunity for Republicans. The case against Joe Biden relied in part on the fact that he was mentally unfit to hold office, which was difficult to translate down-ballot. Kamala Harris owns the Biden Administration’s baggage and is an avowed radical. 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,’’ read the memo drafted by Jason Thielman, the NRSC’s executive director. GOP campaign strategists say they will also be combing through Harris’ record when she ran for president in 2020. “The DCCC just signaled to their candidates to embrace every extreme San Francisco liberal policy that Kamala Harris endorsed,’’ said Will Reinert, spokesman for the NRCC, referring to his counterpart Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Whether that’s banning fracking in Pennsylvania, supporting the Kenosha rioters in Wisconsin or decriminalizing border crossings in California. It’s political suicide, and we are happy to allow Democrats to dig their own political grave.”