Harris and Trump grapple with a transformed race for the White House

ST. CLOUD, Minn. - Donald Trump supporters lining up to enter a rally here passed the usual tents hawking MAGA merchandise, but suddenly most of the gear attacking President Biden (often in vulgar terms) was gone. A few straggler stickers remained with a phrase that’s code for a profane expression against Biden. New swag targeting Vice President Harris, the new likely Democratic nominee, had yet to arrive.

Those sale racks were a small but telling symbol of how the White House race has rapidly transformed since Biden withdrew last Sunday. Democrats have swung from despondency to jubilance with a surge of fundraising, volunteering and meme-making, with one dance club thumping to an excerpt of a viral quote from Harris about falling from a coconut tree. Republicans, meanwhile, have struggled to adapt to Biden’s exit and settle on a clear message to define Harris, with just 100 days until the election.

“He will always be my first choice, but she’s my second choice,” Trump said Saturday of running against Biden or Harris at the top of the ticket. During an address at a bitcoin conference in Nashville, he said he was running against “a low I.Q. individual - her.” (He used the same phrase to describe Biden).

Later, at the rally in St. Cloud, Trump called Harris his “new victim” and mocked her laugh.

“They’re trying to make her into a - let’s say Margaret Thatcher,” Trump said, referring to the former British prime minister. “I don’t think so. It’s not going to happen. Margaret Thatcher didn’t laugh like that. Did she? Did she laugh? If she did she wouldn’t have been Margaret Thatcher. It’s very simple.”

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A new national survey by the Wall Street Journal found 49 percent of registered voters said they supported Trump and 47 percent backed Harris, within the margin of error, compared to Trump leading Biden by six percentage points in the same poll before Biden dropped out. New Fox News polls in battleground states found the candidates statistically tied in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Harris led by six points in Minnesota.

Interviews with rallygoers ahead of a Trump event that was supposed to signal strength and a widening path to victory reflected the grab-bag attacks that Republicans are trying against Harris. Trump supporters referenced her role in the administration’s response to migration, called her liberal and criticized the process of replacing Biden on the ticket. Similarly, the pro-Trump MAGA Inc. super PAC launched new ads attacking Harris on the border, accusing her of covering up Biden’s health and having a liberal voting record.

“I will proudly put my record against his any day,” Harris said at a fundraiser in Pittsfield, Mass. “Some folks would suggest that the measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down … The true measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up.”

Harris allies responded with a new spot touting her work as a prosecutor, state attorney general and vice president. The super PAC Future Forward said it would spend $50 million boosting Harris ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August. Another group, American Bridge 21st Century, is resuming Trump attack ads in battleground states.

Harris allies are leaning into attacking Trump’s new running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), as out of touch with the values of most Americans, especially by spotlighting his three-year-old comments calling Democrats - including Harris - “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable.” (Harris has two stepchildren.)

“You’ve all seen how pathetic JD Vance is, what a weirdo,” second gentleman Doug Emhoff said Saturday at a door-knocking event in Stevens Point, Wis., in support of his wife. “Seriously, this guy, the more you get to know him, the more it’s just ridiculous.”

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In a viral cable news interview, Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), who has emerged as a leading contender for Harris’s running mate, warnedVance that he should careful about stirring the anger of cat people. The Harris campaign followed with a statement describing Vance as a “creep (who wants to ban to abortion nationwide).” Even before changing candidates, the campaign has consistently sought to portray Trump as dangerous and unhinged.

Walz, in an interview with The Washington Post, said he wasn’t trying to drive a political message, just making “an observation.”

“This is weird stuff - they’re way too obsessed with our bedrooms,” he said. “All of a sudden it feels like to me, people are pausing and saying, ‘You’re right, this just doesn’t feel right.’”

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Harris’s fundraiser in western Massachusetts on Saturday was expected to bring in $1.4 million for the campaign, according to one of the co-hosts. The campaign said it raised $126 million from 1.4 million donors in the three days after Biden endorsed Harris.

The surge of contributions marks a reversal of fortunes for Democrats. As of June, Trump and the GOP had virtually erased an earlier Democratic cash advantage.

Harris landed in Massachusetts greeted by busloads of local Democrats, Air National Guard base employees and a 4-H youth group. She took her time on the rope line, mostly posing for selfies.

“It’s definitely a complete transformation,” said Valery Franco, a 23-year-old from Springfield, Mass., who works in recruiting at the nearby base. “There was a lot of discouragement about Biden and what we saw in the debate. People felt like they were choosing between the lesser of two evils. But with Kamala, there’s a lot more energy that she’s bringing to the table.”

At the fundraiser in Pittsfield, Harris told the crowd that Trump and his allies have been resorting to some “wild lies” about her record. And she picked up the Walz line of argument as well.

“Some of what he and his running mate are saying it’s just plain weird,” Harris said to laughter at The Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. “That’s the box you put that in.”

She also noted that Trump had “just pulled out of our debate.” Trump and a spokesman have recently made statements casting doubt on sticking with the debate that the former president and Biden agreed to have in September, hosted by ABC News.

“I hope he reconsiders because we have a lot to talk about,” she said. But she also told the crowd that Democrats are the “underdogs” in the November election. “The bottom line is we have our work cut out for us.”

The event included cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianist Emanuel Ax and singer-songwriter James Taylor. Former governor Deval Patrick is among the co-hosts for the fundraiser, where tickets to attend ranged from $100 to $12,500. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who ran against Harris in the 2020 presidential primary, also attended.

“She made a commitment to come here before this all happened,” said co-host Sherwood Guernsey, an attorney and former state legislator who leads the Rural Freedom Network, a political action committee. “She could have easily said ‘I’ve got to go to the swing states.’ … She’s got lots of other places to go.”

Across the pivotal swing states, the Harris campaign said it was hosting 2,300 grass-roots events this weekend to mobilize supporters. Several of the events doubled as auditions for potential running mates including Walz, and Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.

Trump, meanwhile, previously dismissed cryptocurrency as “a scam” and a “disaster waiting to happen” - but in this campaign, he started opposing “a Central Bank Digital Currency,” adding that to the Republican Party platform, after aggressive lobbying and major donations from industry executives.

In the Nashville speech, Trump repeatedly attacked Biden, adding Harris almost as an afterthought.

“We lost this wonderful person, you know he’s actually a terrible human being,” Trump said of Biden. “The problem is that Kamala,” he added, mispronouncing Harris’s name. “She’s worse than Joe. … She’s got a little honeymoon going on now.”

Later Saturday, Trump joined Vance for the rally in Minnesota. Vance has been on defense over his past comments insulting childless people and advocating for a national abortion ban.

Taking the stage in St. Cloud ahead of Trump, Vance styled Harris as far-left and out of touch.

“The media is at it again,” he told an amped-up crowd that repeatedly leaped to its feet to give deafening cheers. “For three-and-a-half years, my friends, they told us that Joe Biden was Abraham Lincoln. And now the media tells us that Kamala Harris is Martin Luther King Jr.”

Many rally attendees brushed off concerns that Harris could pose a stiffer challenger to Trump than Biden. They asked, rhetorically, what she had done as vice president, convinced she had little to show for it. Like Trump, many mispronounced her name. Some had seen the viral videos of what they called Harris’s “word salads” and predicted she would soon trip up again.

But there was also a hint of apprehension in the crowd that the race just got harder.

“I just feel like there’s more problems ahead with that happening,” said Kris Ryks, a rally attendee from New London, Minn. “It just seems like there’s so much money involved and so many people behind them like never before.”

Knowles reported from St. Cloud. Reston reported from Pittsfield. Wells reported from Wasau and Stevens Point. Arnsdorf reported from Washington.