Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris is embracing some old Republican positions as her own as she takes on Republican rival former President Donald Trump, pollster Frank Luntz said Tuesday. Progress has been made.
Luntz said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that Harris “is taking a leaf out of the Republican playbook.”
The political strategist meant it as a compliment to the vice president.
He praised Harris’ “important use of language,” noted her focus on small business issues and described herself as a capitalist. He also pointed to her party’s emphasis on freedom during the Democratic National Convention.
“If you just listen to these general statements, she actually sounds like a moderate Republican,” Lentz said.
“So the challenge for the Trump campaign is to stop these constant character attacks and challenge her on specific issues and her claims,” he said.
“Because, let me tell you something, The latest New York Times pollshe is starting to break through,” he added.
The Times/Siena College poll released on Tuesday showed Harris leading Trump nationally for the first time since President Joe Biden withdrew from the presumptive Democratic nomination in mid-July.
The poll of 3,385 likely voters conducted from September 29 to Sunday showed Harris leading Trump by a slim margin of 49% to 46%, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.
A previous Times/Siena poll conducted in mid-September showed support for the two candidates was tied at 47%.
New polls show Harris’ growing support among older voters and Republicans.
For the first time, more respondents in the Times/Siena poll viewed Harris as the candidate representing change than Trump.
Lentz said he’s seen a similar shift toward Harris in focus groups he’s tracking with undecided voters.
He said these voters were “broadly turning away from Joe Biden” before the president dropped out of the race.
But, Lentz said of her Sept. 10 matchup with Trump, “after the first debate, they turned to Kamala Harris.”
“Now they’re asking: Who told me the truth?”
Lentz also weighed in on Harris’ appearance on CBS News.60 minutes,” airing Monday night.
It “took a while,” he said, but Harris was now “getting tough interviews” and “being challenged.”
Since taking over the Democratic campaign, Harris has been criticized for shying away from impromptu public appearances and avoiding interviews with major media outlets.
But Lenz believes her “60 Minutes” interview flipped that script because Trump withdraws planned to appear on the same show and declined to debate Harris again.
“It’s Donald Trump who’s avoiding the debate,” Luntz said. “She deserves credit for that.”
Trump’s campaign initially claimed that negotiations with “60 Minutes” failed because the show insisted on conducting live fact-checking of Trump’s claims.
The campaign later insisted that Trump deserved but never received an apology from the show’s reporter Lesley Stahl for her handling of Trump’s appearances before 2020.
Luntz accused Harris of not providing specific details during her “60 Minutes” interview as she claimed she would fund her economic plan in part by ensuring the wealthiest Americans “pay their fair share of taxes.”
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