Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) downplayed concerns that VP Harris’s shifting stance could affect the November vote.
Harris’ policy platform has changed somewhat since the 2020 presidential campaign and now includes support for fracking, stricter border controls and abandoning the single-payer health care proposal.
“Some positions may be central to a campaign and make a big difference, but at the end of the day, I think voters judge candidates holistically,” Durbin said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday. “Voters have an image of Donald Trump and an image of Kamala Harris, and that’s what will determine their vote.”
“Look at what’s happened since Joe Biden dropped out of the race and Kamala Harris entered the race,” he continued. “There’s been a dramatic shift, for example, among young people. I mean, this is the entire career of each individual candidate and every position they take. Rarely does one position decide a campaign.”
Republicans branded Harris “too liberal” to be president and criticized her 2020 campaign platform for being more left-leaning than then-candidate Biden, but after becoming Biden’s vice president, Harris softened her position to better suit the Biden administration.
Durbin said that line of attack would not be popular with most voters.
“They’re going to try to attack her and impress her with that as much as they can,” he said. “I think they’re going to realize that there’s a lot more to her record as a former prosecutor and attorney general of California, having served with me on the Senate Judiciary Committee than just a label.”
Harris and former President Trump are neck and neck in the presidential polls, with the vice president outperforming Biden since entering the race and leading in several key battleground states.
