A prominent super PAC supporting Kamala Harris has informed the vice president that labeling former President Donald Trump as a fascist “is not that persuasive.”
With only a week remaining before the election, the super PAC Future Forward sent a message to Democrats indicating that such personal attacks on Trump’s character are ineffective, as reported by The New York Times. The organization also noted that referring to Trump as “exhausted” was similarly unimpactful.
These emails have been a regular occurrence for months, but their frequency has increased as the election approaches. The correspondence aims to steer Democratic messaging based on Future Forward’s analysis of various media clips and social media activity. The latest email suggests that Democrats should concentrate on Harris’ policy positions, particularly her economic initiatives and views on abortion.
“Purely negative attacks on Trump’s character are less effective than contrast messages that include positive details about Kamala Harris’s plans to address the needs of everyday Americans,” the email said, according to the Times.
Additionally, the email pointed out that Harris’ remarks regarding former Trump chief of staff John Kelly’s dubious allegations about Trump praising Adolf Hitler’s generals were not as impactful as other statements. In particular, her comments during a CNN town hall fell flat compared to her appearance on Howard Stern, where she committed to expanding Medicare. Nevertheless, the Biden-Harris administration rolled out a plan under the misleadingly named Inflation Reduction Act, which would actually hike Medicare premiums. To obscure this, they intend to funnel billions of dollars to private insurance companies to keep costs low until after the election, POLITICO reported.
Though the email’s content seemed troubling enough to warrant coverage from the Times, Future Forward’s president Chauncey McLean downplayed the concerns in a statement to the outlet.
“Don’t over-read this,” McLean told the Times. “This is just one of our regular emails sharing testing results from thousands of pieces of earned and social media content. It shows people that the most effective way of using Trump’s words and behavior is tying them to consequences in voters’ lives. That’s what Kamala Harris does every day by comparing her to-do list with his enemies list, for example.”
Currently, Harris leads Trump by less than one percentage point, based on a Daily Wire average of 305 polls. At this same time in 2020, President Joe Biden had a 4.5-point advantage over Trump according to the Real Clear Politics polling average. Additionally, Polymarket, the largest prediction market, indicates a 66.6% likelihood of Trump winning the election.
