Every presidential campaign wrestles with how to use its three biggest resources—money, issues and time. The last is the most precious. Campaigns can always raise more money or generate more issues. But they can never create more time.
This is why Kamala Harris’s campaign wisely isn’t responding to many of Donald Trump’s attacks. The Republican, unfortunately, has been wasting precious time going after her on inconsequential matters. The Biden-Harris record on inflation, the border and world events remains relatively unmentioned. He’s letting her skate.
After Ms. Harris replaced Joe Biden in late July, Mr. Trump complained she hadn’t sat down for media interviews. “She’s not smart enough,” he said. Last Friday, Ms. Harris finally did a solo interview with a Philadelphia anchor. She’ll need to do more unscripted appearances going forward, but swing voters didn’t seem to care that she wasn’t sitting for them this summer. Her polling certainly didn’t suffer.
Mr. Trump also spent days complaining Ms. Harris hadn’t gone through any primaries, making her selection undemocratic. He called it “the first ever ‘Coup’ in America” and whined it was “not fair.” Team Harris ignored him.
Mr. Trump also complained on and on that Ms. Harris not only hadn’t laid out her agenda; she didn’t even have a policy page on her website. When she put one up Sept. 8, the Trump campaign called it “a late-night, half-ass wish list to her website to solve the problems SHE helped create over the past four years.” Again, swing voters don’t appear to be upset about this issue. Many were busy getting their kids back to school.
Mr. Trump chewed up more valuable time whining that Ms. Harris had changed her positions on fracking, the Green New Deal, the abolition of private health insurance and other progressive nostrums. “Everything that she believed three years ago,” Mr. Trump grumbled in their debate, “is out the window.” Undecided voters seem as if they couldn’t care less. They believe all politicians change opinions when advantageous, and Ms. Harris has moved toward their stances.
The Trump-Vance ticket has also wasted vital days with its self-owns. The campaign has yet to produce a single Ohio pet owner mourning Fluffy or Fido being barbecued by Haitian migrants. Mr. Trump also devoted Sunday to expressing hatred for Taylor Swift. Her many fans were doubtless angered and energized.
Ms. Harris has been content to let Mr. Trump fritter away the past eight weeks on these ridiculous attacks. Every day he focused on them—and on calling her a “Marxist, communist fascist” without concrete evidence—he neglected topics where he could inflict damage. He effectively buries what criticism he does make of her and Mr. Biden’s performance on the issues under mountains of minutiae and over-the-top rhetoric. If he pairs brief criticism on important points in a rally with a prolonged focus on weird things, what will get coverage? Weird every time.
It’s no surprise, then, that Ms. Harris has seen a significant improvement in her favorable numbers since reaching the top of the ticket. For the first time in three years, her average favorability rating is higher than her average unfavorability rating. That may lead to further improvement in head-to-head polling. She has also begun to close the gap with Mr. Trump in voters’ minds in terms of who’s better to handle the economy and border.
With less than seven weeks until Election Day—and voters in some states already receiving mail-in ballots—Mr. Trump better stop wasting time.
Fortunately for him, he may shortly get help from an unlikely corner. Mr. Biden plans what White House aides say will be a national tour to talk about his “epochal, economy-changing, history changing accomplishments.” Barnstorming America to praise Bidenomics last year made Democrats look out of touch. Repeating it now only makes Mr. Biden and his vice president a gigantic target.
