Rob Crilly of the Washington Examiner highlights an early Republican reaction to Kamala Harris’ selection as Democratic vice presidential candidate.
The Trump campaign ignited a fresh battle for female votes in the hours after Joe Biden unveiled Kamala Harris as his running mate, saying “security moms” and suburban women would not want a vice president who had marched with Black Lives Matter protesters.
Trump allies fear that his support is already seeping away among a core group that helped propel him to power in 2016.
But on Tuesday evening, they saw an opportunity to begin winning back women by attacking Harris and her recent record on law and order.
On a conference call with reporters, Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn said: “This has completed the leftist takeover of the party and of their radical agenda.”
She cited Harris’s calls to overhaul ICE, give healthcare to illegal aliens, and her support for sanctuary cities as issues that would alienate voters who care about law and order.
“With this move to the left, what you are going to see [is] a lot of ‘security moms’ that are all across this nation, who are going to say, ‘You know what, law and order is important to me, and I don’t want a vice president who is out there marching in the streets with the BLM organization,'” Blackburn said.
“And they will say, ‘You know, law and order is important to me, and I do not think felons should be voting while they are in prison.’”
During a candidates’ town hall last year, she said there should be “conversation” about allowing felons to vote from prison.
Positions like those will turn off voters when they think about whether a Biden presidency could give way to a Harris presidency, added Blackburn.
“The question that people, women are going to ask is: Will I be safer with Kamala Harris as president?”
