Once the presumptive nominee, President Biden to spend Election Day at White House with no public events

(WASHINGTON) — Republican calls are mounting for sharper focus by former President Donald Trump on inflation and immigration, worried that his penchant for personal attacks and scattered stances on social issues could serve as distractions in his quest to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris.

In key down-ballot races, however, Republicans are still fighting on the culture-war battlefields.

Red- and purple-state Republican Senate challengers are leaning on issues such as transgender rights and “wokeism” to define battle-hardened Democratic incumbents as too liberal and chip away at longstanding brands among their electorates.

The dynamic serves as a recognition that while Trump needs to win over swing voters in purple states, a Republican Senate majority hinges on GOP strongholds like Montana and Ohio, where boiling the race down to a conservative-versus-liberal matchup allows those states’ partisan bents to take over.

“If you’re running against a Democrat who’s running underneath Trump [on the ballot] in a state where Trump’s going to win overwhelmingly, then you have every reason to try to drive a shirts-and-skins election,” said GOP strategist Scott Jennings. “Get everybody into their corners, don’t let them think that ticket splitting is a good idea or something they should even consider.”

Republicans are bullish on their opportunities to unseat Montana Sen. Jon Tester and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. They’re also hoping to expand a future majority by winning seats in purple states such as Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and they’re not just relying on kitchen-table issues to do it.

Senate Leadership Fund, the top GOP Senate super PAC, released ads in Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania Tuesday knocking Democratic incumbents there for what they said was support for allowing “biological men” to compete in “women’s sports.”

Tim Sheehy, the Republican nominee to take on Tester, also knocked Democrats in his opening ad over “drag queen story time on our military bases” and said he was running “to get this woke crap out of our military.” At his speech at this summer’s Republican convention, Sheehy started his speech by saying, “My name is Tim Sheehy. Those are also my pronouns.”

And Bernie Moreno, the GOP nominee in Ohio, wrote on his website that he’s running in part to “end wokeness and cancel culture,” and a supportive super PAC had hammered one primary opponent as being untrustworthy for being a “champion for trans equality.”

The tactics are all part of a strategy to tear down in-state images of Democratic candidates — Tester and Brown in particular — as bipartisan dealmakers and instead remake them as nothing more than run-of-the-mill liberals in states where the overall partisan makeup makes such labels untenable. And if they’re successful Republican candidates, can just ride on Trump’s lengthy red-state coattails.

“It’s code for liberal,” one GOP strategist working on Senate races said of the recent ads. “It’s less about the actual trans issue itself and more about what their support for that issue actually says about their overall worldview.”

“Ohio and Montana are the inverse of almost every swing state Senate race of the last three cycles. And what I mean by that is, it’s not a question of, can Republicans reach beyond the Trump base to win over voters who didn’t support Trump? Neither Tim Sheehy nor Bernie Moreno needs a single voter to vote for them who isn’t already voting for Trump,” the person added.

Multiple Republican strategists boasted of poll numbers they’d seen of the popularity of GOP stances on transgender issues. A second operative working on Senate races said it was the “better testing and often the best testing message in surveys” they’d seen, and Brad Todd, another GOP strategist, said two campaign’s he’s working on are planning on releasing ads of their own on the topic.

And for Republican candidates like Sheehy, Moreno and Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania, all of whom can’t compete with the name recognition of their multi-term Democratic opponents, social issues offer an avenue to signaling alignment with voters looking to learn more about them.

“You do have to check some boxes with some voters so that they cross that threshold of, ‘Well, is this even someone that is culturally aligned with me enough to consider?’ And that issue right there for a lot of more culturally conservative voters is one that definitely pops,” Jennings said.

The moves mark a stark contrast with the conventional wisdom in the presidential race, where Republicans are pushing Trump to focus on the economy and border security and leave aside issues such as transgender athletes, gender-affirming care for minors and his scattershot stances on some women’s reproductive rights matters. Still, some references to culture-war issues could prove advantageous, according to Republican strategists.

“I do think [in the presidential race], voters look to it more as a wrong track/right track on the economy. They see the president as the person steering the ship of economic state and in charge of sovereignty,” Todd said. “I think because those issues are so closely tied to the president and Republicans have an advantage on both of them, that’s why you don’t see as much discussed there. But they would be fair game.”

To be certain, Republicans are not hinging their Senate prospects solely on red meat, telling ABC News that it’s just one piece of the puzzle and that burnishing their own credentials on kitchen table issues is also critical.

“The type of people could vote for Donald Trump and Jon Tester, Donald Trump and Sherrod Brown, we know those people exist. They’re going to start to say, ‘OK, I get it. Tester is Biden, Brown is Biden. So, what do you got for me? What’s my alternative? Give me something,'” said a third GOP strategist working on Senate races. “You just can’t be generic Republican versus a liberal, because that’s been tried, and that clearly doesn’t work against Tester and Brown.”

Still, the person added, “you got to have more than one arrow in your quiver, and that’s the cultural stuff. There’s a place for it in these races.”

Some Democrats swatted away concerns that Republicans’ messaging was as potent as they claimed.

“Does anyone base their vote on this issue? How many people has this actually happened to?” Democratic strategist and former Senate aide Jon Reinish asked of transgender rights issues. “I’m expecting it is slim to probably none.”

But other Democrats told ABC News that transgender rights and other culture war topics could be potent in red states and made sense as a strategy where simply keeping GOP voters in line could deliver Republican victories — and with them, likely the Senate majority.

“Those are just redder states where I think the culture war stuff just gets more traction and playing to your base can get you over 50%,” one Democratic pollster said. “So, it does not surprise me at all to take that tact in these redder states.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The White House and Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign on Wednesday continued to do clean up from President Joe Biden’s “garbage” comment, even as former President Donald Trump seized on it and the controversy dominated the news cycle, distracting from Harris’ “closing argument.”

On Tuesday night, Biden seemed to call Trump supporters as “garbage” during a campaign call hosted by the nonprofit Voto Latino.

“And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,'” Biden said, according to a video clip from the fundraiser that aired on CNN.

“I don’t — I — I don’t know the Puerto Rican that — that I know — or a Puerto Rico, where I’m fr- — in my home state of Delaware, they’re good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been,” Biden said.

His comments quickly drew fire from Republicans and came just as Harris was delivering her closing argument speech nearby on the Ellipse, calling for Americans to turn the page on hateful rhetoric and division in American politics.

At a campaign rally in Mount Rock, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Trump tied Harris to Biden’s comments.

“Now speaking on a call for her campaign last night, Joe Biden finally said what he and Kamala really think of our supporters. He called them garbage. And they mean it,” Trump said.

“Even though without question my supporters are far higher quality than Crooked Joe or Lyin’ Kamala,” Trump said. “My response to Joe and Kamala is very simple: you can’t lead America if you don’t love Americans.”

Biden himself posted a clarification on Tuesday night, saying that his comment was about the comedian who made the joke and “referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage — which is the only word I can think of to describe it.”

“His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation,” Biden said in the post on X.

At her daily briefing, reporters pressed White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about Biden’s comments.

“No, he does not view Trump supporters or anybody who supports Trump as garbage,” Jean-Pierre insisted.

“The president has said this for more than three years now, he has said multiple times that he is a president for all. It doesn’t matter if you live in a red state, it doesn’t matter if you live in a blue state.”

When asked whether Biden misspoke or regrets his remarks, Jean-Pierre answered the president “clarified what he said” to ensure it was not “taken out of context.”

“He took the extra step to clarify. And, you know, you don’t see that from many elected officials, you certainly didn’t see that from the former president. And this president wanted to make sure it was not taken out of context,” Jean-Pierre said.

Jean-Pierre said the president spoke to Harris Tuesday night after her speech to congratulate her. She wouldn’t say, though, if Biden had apologized or made any reference to his comment when they spoke.

For her part, Harris tried to distance herself from the comments. In an interview with ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce, Harris was asked how she felt when she heard his “garbage” remark.

“Well, first of all, I think that the president has explained what he meant,” Harris told Bruce. “But I said it earlier, I strongly disagree with any criticism of the people based on who they vote for and I’ve made that clear throughout my career, including my speech last night before I think this all happened, which is I intend to be president for all Americans, and including those who may not vote for me in this election.”

But this incident isn’t the first time the White House and Harris’ campaign has had to play clean up after a Biden gaffe raised eyebrows. Just last week Biden was talking about Trump and said, “We gotta lock him up. Politically lock him up.”

The comments also come as Biden is planning to travel to battleground Pennsylvania twice later this week – for campaign and official events. Jean-Pierre said that for now there are now plans to adjust his schedule.

ABC News’ Kelsey Walsh, Will McDuffie and Alexandra Hurtzler contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — During the first presidential debate Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris took a page out of former President Donald Trump’s playbook, attacking Trump by using his exact words against him.

Trump has repeatedly touted the world is laughing at the United States, and that the country has become a “disgrace” as a result of the Biden-Harris administration’s foreign policies.

Harris instead painted Trump as the “disgrace” that the world is laughing at Tuesday night.

“I have traveled the world as vice president of the United States and world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump,” she said.

In addition to appropriating one of Trump’s regular lines, Harris also told the former president that dictators “can manipulate you with flattery and favors” and foes like President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia “would eat you for lunch.”

At the start of the debate, Harris said Trump would deliver “the same old tired playbook, a bunch of lies, grievances and name-calling.” However, she seemed to take a page out of this playbook with name-calling of her own.

She continued to reverse the foreign policy blame onto Trump and referred to him as “weak” and a “disgrace” — terms he has repeatedly directed towards her party and administration.

“It is very well known that Donald Trump is weak and wrong on national security and foreign policy,” she said. “It is well known that he admires dictators, wants to be a dictator on day one, according to himself.”

She added that military leaders that have worked with Trump “say [he’s] a disgrace.”

In terms of overall strategy, Harris also used Trump’s tactics against him, taking on an attack stance and attempting to get under his skin.

The vice president mocked Trump for talking about “fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter” and said he was “fired by 81 million people” — just a few of her many jabs throughout the night.

According to a New York Times analysis, Trump’s total speaking time spanned longer than Harris’, but the vice president spent more time attacking her opponent.

Harris spent 17 minutes and 25 seconds attacking Trump, while Trump spent 12 minutes and 54 seconds attacking Harris, the report said.

ABC News has reached out to Harris’ campaign regarding her debate strategy.

While Trump did not explicitly acknowledge Harris’ use of his signature phrasing and typical attack strategy, he insinuated that she was copying him.

“Everything that she believed three years ago and four years ago is out the window. She’s going to my philosophy now,” he said during the debate. “In fact, I was going to send her a MAGA hat.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.