The pivotal contest to shape Vice President Kamala Harris’s image is heating up, with both her campaign and that of former President Trump investing heavily in advertisements designed to solidify voters’ views of her.
Harris’s advertisement, her first since President Biden recently suspended his 2024 re-election campaign and endorsed her a week ago, is titled “Fearless.” The ad highlights her tenure as the district attorney of San Francisco and the attorney general of California.
“As a prosecutor, she put murderers and abusers behind bars. As California’s attorney general, she fought against major banks and secured $20 billion for homeowners,” the narrator states in the ad.
Referring to her three and a half years as vice president, the narrator emphasizes that Harris “took on the pharmaceutical giants to lower insulin costs for seniors. Because Kamala Harris has always understood who she represents.”
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Trump’s advertisement marks the former president’s first significant ad campaign of the year during the GOP primaries, targeting Harris for her perceived inability to handle border security—a major concern for voters.
“She’s failed us. Under Harris, over 10 million are here illegally. A quarter of a million Americans have died from fentanyl. There have been horrific crimes by migrants. And now, ISIS is here,” the narrator asserts.
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The advertisement features a clip from Harris’s widely viewed and frequently criticized NBC News interview in 2021, where she responded to questions about her visits to the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Kamala Harris: failed, weak, dangerously liberal,” the narrator charges.
Trump’s campaign plans to allocate over $12 million to air the ad over the next two weeks in key battleground states including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
This ad amplifies Trump’s attacks on Harris in response to the surge of migrants at the southern border during Biden’s presidency.
Harris was appointed by Biden in 2021 to lead diplomatic efforts to address the “root causes” of migration in Central America, leading to her being dubbed the “border czar” by the media and opponents, a title the White House has refuted.
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Simultaneously, two pro-Trump super PACs, MAGA Inc. and Preserve America, are executing multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns criticizing Harris over border security.
The Harris campaign reports that her inaugural TV commercial, featuring footage from her recent rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is part of a $50 million ad budget across local and national broadcast, cable, streaming, and social media platforms, ahead of the Democratic National Convention starting August 19 in Chicago.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at West Allis Central High School during her first campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 23, 2024. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)
The narrator in the Harris commercial asserts that “Donald Trump wants to pull our country backwards,” seemingly positioning the 59-year-old vice president to highlight the 78-year-old Trump’s age.
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Biden’s significant announcement nine days ago came amid increasing pressure from the Democratic Party for him to step aside following a poor showing in last month’s first presidential debate against Trump. Biden’s unsteady and hesitant performance raised doubts about his physical and mental capability to serve another four years in the presidency.
However, Biden’s swift endorsement of Harris sparked a wave of endorsements for her from Democratic governors, senators, House members, and other party leaders. Within 36 hours, Harris declared that she secured the verbal support of a majority of the nearly 4,000 delegates at the convention, locking in her party’s nomination.
This shift in the Democratic Party leadership altered the dynamics of the presidential campaign, which had previously been a rematch between two well-known candidates.
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris (Getty Images)
Nonetheless, the vice president remains less familiar to voters, and both campaigns are eager to be the first to define her image.
“Kamala Harris has consistently stood up to bullies, criminals, and special interests for the American people—and she has triumphed,” stated Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon in a statement released with the advertisement.
For more than a week, Harris has been emphasizing her extensive law enforcement background while drawing attention to Trump’s numerous legal issues, including his 34 felony convictions from a recent criminal trial involving a former or current president.
“As many of you know, before becoming vice president and prior to my role as a United States senator, I served as the elected attorney general of California. Before that, I was a prosecutor. In those capacities, I took on all kinds of offenders,” Harris mentioned during a campaign event last week.
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“I tackled predators who abused women, crooks who cheated consumers, and those who violated the rules for personal gain. So let me be clear—I know the type of person Donald Trump is,” she emphasized, citing Trump’s multitude of lawsuits and ongoing criminal cases.
Trump responded during a rally last week in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Former President Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, Wednesday, July 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)
“I don’t think people will buy into that narrative,” Trump declared, also labeling Harris as “one of the worst prosecutors in history,” adding that “she destroyed San Francisco.”
In a Monday interview on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” Trump reiterated his position that Harris is significantly more liberal than Biden.
Longtime Republican strategist David Kochel remarked that both the Trump and Harris campaigns are “in a race to define” the vice president, given that most Americans “know so little about her record… The time for action is now for both sides.”
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Fox News Digital’s Adam Shaw contributed to this report
