Vice President Kamala Harris may be playing “political gamesmanship” by letting her subordinates take the lead rather than pushing for a major policy shift herself, a Republican strategist said.
An anonymous associate of Harris’s said she had changed her stance on key issues she supported in the 2019 presidential election, including fracking and Medicare for All, but Harris herself has not yet spoken out about the change in her stance.
While the Harris campaign appears to be pushing a revised platform, one political strategist told Fox News Digital that “anonymous campaign staffers do not take public policy positions, but candidates and elected officials do.”
“The American people should assume that the positions that Ms. Harris took during the last presidential campaign, and the positions that the Biden-Harris administration has taken, are exactly the same as her positions today, unless Ms. Harris herself explains otherwise,” Dallas Woodhouse, North Carolina state representative for American Majority, told Fox.
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Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris waits to speak during a campaign rally at United Auto Workers Local 900 in Wayne, Michigan, August 8, 2024. Kamala Harris and newly selected vice presidential candidate Tim Walz have been campaigning across the country this week. (Andrew Harnick)
“The American people will never accept a candidate changing all of the positions he expressed years ago without thorough scrutiny and explanation,” he added.
Hydraulic fracturing
Harris has said that if elected in her first term, she would ban fracking, an issue that is important to key voters in battleground states such as Pennsylvania.
“There’s no question I support a ban on fracking. I have a history of working on this issue,” Harris said in 2020.
Republicans, including former President Trump, have used her past comments on the issue to attack her in several campaign ads since she launched her 2024 campaign.
Democratic campaign officials say Harris would not ban fracking if elected president.
Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz appear onstage together during a campaign event at Temple University’s Liacoras Center on August 6, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Andrew Harnick)
“Medicare for All”
Harris announced her “Medicare for All” plan during the 2019 presidential campaign, writing that her goal was to “end the senseless attack on Obamacare” and that “health care should be a right, not a privilege only for those who can afford it. That’s why we need Medicare for All.”
“The idea is to make health care available to everyone, without having to go through insurance companies, approvals, paperwork and other delays that may be required. Let’s eliminate that,” Harris wrote in 2019.
Additionally, as a senator at the time, Harris was a co-sponsor of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)’s Medicare for All bill in 2019.
Despite her past support, campaign officials told Fox News’ senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy that Harris won’t be pushing the issue of “Medicare for All” in this election.
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Colin Reed, a Republican strategist, former campaign manager and co-founder of South & Hill Strategies, told Fox News Digital that Harris’ change of tack seems implausible.
WAYNE, MICHIGAN – AUGUST 8: Democratic presidential candidate and US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the United Auto Workers Local 900 on August 8, 2024 in Wayne, Michigan. (Andrew Harnick)
“When Vice President Harris ran for president five years ago, she was a sitting senator and a former attorney general of the largest state in the country. In other words, she was an incredibly capable person with plenty of time to form opinions on major issues on the national stage,” Reid told Fox. “It’s hard to believe that she could change her stance on a series of major issues in an instant over the course of five changes.”
Reid emphasized his shift away from Medicare for All, saying it would cost $44 trillion, more than our total national debt of $35 trillion.
“Either she was wrong then or she is playing politics now, and voters will understand if she decides to answer questions unscripted,” Reid said.
The suggested shift in position comes as Republicans are using her past positions on issues such as fracking to hurt her in the 2024 presidential election.
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Fox News Digital asked the Harris campaign whether it plans to announce any new positions on key issues of its own.
