Democrats emerge from convention with sharper attacks on Trump

While Trump has struggled to caricature Harris as effectively as he did “dishonest Hillary Clinton” and “sleepy Joe Biden,” his two previous campaign rivals, the convention provided Democrats with an opportunity to hone their own political attacks.

Although Harris used her nomination acceptance speech to lay out what she described as her “New Way Forward” platform, she mentioned Trump 16 times, calling him an “unserious man” with “serious consequences.”

“Imagine the power he’s going to have, especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled that he’s going to be immune from criminal prosecution,” Harris told congressmen in Chicago, referring to the partial immunity judges granted presidents earlier this year. “Imagine Donald Trump with no safeguards.”

Four years after former first lady Michelle Obama encouraged Democrats to “go high” while Republicans “go low,” Obama criticized Trump for his racially charged rhetoric toward her and her husband, former President Barack Obama.

“Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s looking for right now might be one of those ‘black jobs’?” she asked of Trump, drawing on his claim in the June debate that immigrants were undermining black jobs.

Barack Obama also made a sarcastic remark about the size of the crowd at Trump’s expense.

But it was the speech by Clinton, the former secretary of state and 2016 presidential candidate, that became one of the most salient critiques of the week. Like other senior Democrats, she used Harris’ experience as a San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general to draw a contrast with Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records.

“As a prosecutor, Kamala has arrested murderers and drug dealers. She will never stop defending our freedom and security,” Clinton said. “Donald Trump fell asleep during his own trial, and when he woke up, he made his own kind of history: He became the first presidential candidate with 34 felony convictions.”

Democrats dispute that Harris’ campaign pitch is solely an anti-Trump message. The flip side is that the former president is being used as a foil for what Democrats see as a forward-looking vision.

“Never before have we had someone who was the candidate of a major political party and was a convicted felon for sexually assaulting a woman,” renowned attorney Gloria Allred told the Washington Examiner at a downtown hotel after the delegation’s breakfasts. “Of course we’re going to talk about it, but the focus is not on the past. It’s on the future. As much as Trump would like it to be about him, it’s really about the American people and what we’re going to do for their families in the future.”

At the same time, not all Democrats are comfortable with the emphasis on using the term “criminal” to describe Trump’s moral character.

“What I’m here to say is we need to expose people who have proven they are willing to cheat, lie and steal,” said DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston. Washington Examiner “It’s a problem, and there are a lot of people in the justice system who take responsibility for their actions and want redemption. Donald Trump has proven that he’s not one of those people, right? And that’s how I want to talk about it.”

But Democratic leaders widely believe Trump should be at the heart of their message to voters, just as he was in the midterm elections.

Rising stars in the Democratic Party, including Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), a potential 2028 presidential candidate, have said it is important to “prosecute the case” against Trump and “remind people of the damage he has done, the chaos he has brought and the freedoms he has restricted.”

“I remain more optimistic than ever because I am betting on the American people,” Shapiro told the Washington Examiner “I bet people will do what we’ve been doing for two and a half centuries: stand up and seek a fairer outcome. And I think if the American people do that again, we’re going to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”

Republicans have made Harris the centerpiece of their campaign message to voters. But they have focused on policy, particularly the views the vice president espoused during her 2020 presidential campaign. She has pivoted to the center on some issues in recent weeks, but Republicans believe her support for a fracking ban and her flirtation with the defund-the-police movement will prove a liability for her in key battleground states.

Trump has largely adopted this approach, though he has been chastised by allies for launching personal attacks on Harris that center on her intelligence and race.

Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler said portraying Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), as “joyful warriors” would help them win key states, including his own. Walz was one of the first to use the term “joyful” to characterize a rejuvenated campaign after Biden withdrew from the 2024 race.

“The campaign is hitting exactly the right tone to remind voters that they are running against a 34-time convicted felon who has consistently put himself in the country’s spotlight and also to really focus on defining who Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are,” Wikler told the Washington Examiner “These are people who are less familiar to voters who pay less attention to politics, and voters already know who Trump is. So the major opportunity now is to contrast the person who broke the law and tried to overturn an election so he could cling to power with the prosecutor and middle-class kid who is fighting to create a country where everyone is free and there is opportunity for everyone.”

Wisconsin delegate Linda Norton, 75, said she agreed that Harris’ campaign doesn’t need to “change” anything about what it’s doing so far.

“Stick to our policies. Stick to what they want to do for the American people. We’ll be fine,” Norton, a retired Eau Claire clinician, told The Washington Post. Washington Examiner at the same breakfast.

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), who is trying to win President Joe Biden’s primary this cycle, said he was also pleased with Harris’ campaign strategy.

“You can be strong and principled. You can also be compassionate,” Phillips told the Washington Examiner “We need to bring joy back to this country. I speak to conservatives and liberals in the same tone and demand that we think about this a little bit more, because what a blessing it would be if we could debate with a smile and show a little bit more compassion for one another. That’s what this is about.”

To that end, in addition to deciding how Democrats should talk about Trump, the party is also considering how to address Republicans.

For Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), another potential 2028 contender and one of the few Democratic governors to lead a Trump-backing state, Harris is expected to appeal to Republicans by proposing policies that improve people’s lives.

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“When they wake up in the morning, they’re worried, like I said, about their job, their next doctor’s appointment, the roads and bridges they’re going to drive on, the public school they’re dropping their kids off at, and public safety,” Beshear told the Washington Examiner “With the Republicans that are running right now, Donald Trump and (vice presidential candidate) J.D. Vance, going to such extremes, there’s an opportunity to be the party that governs your daily life, that tries to make it better, that doesn’t try to move a state or a country to the right or the left but to move it forward for everybody.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a more liberal Democrat, endorsed that position while urging Democrats to remember to talk to the working class.