The leaders of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign defended their decision to not directly respond to a withering attack ad over transgender rights that became one of the most poignant closing arguments of Donald Trump’s re-election bid.
They blamed the vice president’s defeat on “ferocious” political headwinds and an abbreviated general election campaign.
“There was a price to be paid for the short campaign,” David Plouffe, a senior adviser to Harris, said in an interview released on Tuesday.
Three weeks after the election, Plouffe and three other Harris advisers spoke out for the first time on the liberal podcast, “Pod Save America.” They said a 107-day campaign did not give Harris time to distinguish herself from President Joe Biden and his low approval ratings.
“If there’s a belief that if only we had responded to this trans ad with national and huge battleground state ads we would have won,” Plouffe said. “I don’t think that’s true.”
The attack ad, which closed with the memorable line “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you,” was seen by the Trump campaign as one of its most successful decisions. The ad used Harris’ own words, highlighting support for taxpayer-funded sex reassignment surgeries for transgender prisoners.
“Obviously, it was a very effective ad at the end,” said Quentin Fulks, a deputy campaign manager for Harris. “I think that it made her seem out of touch.”
Yet the architects of the Harris campaign dismissed suggestions that some Democrats have made since the election that not responding to the ad played a major role in Harris’ defeat. The advisers said they tested several response ads, but none were seen in focus groups as particularly effective.
“We took it very seriously,” Plouffe said, adding that it did not determine the election. “This was not driving voter behavior, like the economy.”
In a wide-ranging conversation with podcast host Dan Pfeiffer, a former adviser to Barack Obama, the Harris aides defended the strategic decisions they made on the campaign, including extensive outreach to moderate Republicans in the final weeks of the race. None called out Biden by name and his decision to step aside in July, but they argued such a short race put Harris in a nearly impossible situation.