Vulnerable Senate Democratic candidates in crucial swing states are distancing themselves from Vice President Kamala Harris in the election’s final days, hoping to attract conservative voters as former president Donald Trump gains momentum in the “blue wall” states, the Hill reported.
Recent polls show Democratic Senate candidates in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan losing ground to Republican challengers in narrow races that could determine control of the upper chamber. In the final weeks before the election, the candidates are avoiding associations with Harris and choosing to tout Trump policies in campaign ads that cast them as more moderate candidates, according to the Hill.
In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, incumbent Democratic senators Tammy Baldwin and Bob Casey are highlighting their work with Trump. Baldwin, in an ad released last week, touted her advocacy for a Trump-signed bill requiring the use of American steel over Chinese steel in infrastructure projects. Casey’s recent ad highlighted his willingness to defy the Biden administration on fracking and collaborate with Trump to end NAFTA, positioning himself as an “independent.”
“There’s no party affiliation in Casey ads,” Berwood Yost, the director of the Center for Public Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College, told the Hill. “He’s trying to distance himself a little bit from an administration that is viewed negatively by the most part. He doesn’t want to be tied to that either through Biden or Harris.”
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted both Casey’s and Baldwin’s Senate races from “lean Democrat” to a “toss-up” this month.
In Michigan, Democratic Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin—who represents the state’s moderate seventh district—is also touting her support for Trump-era policies and experts are taking note of her distance from the unpopular Biden-Harris administration.
“Slotkin isn’t talking about Biden simply because some of the issues where voters are judging performance are not in the Democrats’ favor,” David Dulio, a political science professor at Oakland University, told the Hill, speaking of voters’ displeasure over the economy and illegal immigration.
Harris campaign advisers expressed concern that the vice president may not win the three “blue wall” states, an anomaly that hasn’t happened since 1988, NBC reported. If Harris fails to win Wisconsin or Michigan—even if she secures Pennsylvania—she would not breach the necessary 270 electoral votes to win the presidency, the outlet added.
Baldwin recently campaigned in rural red counties to recruit “Trump-Tammy voters”—Wisconsinites she hopes will vote for her and the former president. In 2016, however, Baldwin claimed that these Trump voters were “failing [a] moral test” by backing the Republican candidate in that election.
In her Friday debate, Baldwin largely ignored President Joe Biden and Harris and referenced Trump and his policies instead, the Hill reported.
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