Lindsey Graham has told Donald Trump what he needs to do to beat Kamala Harris in November after polls showed the vice president catching up to the former president.
Overall, the race is very close, according to a new CBS News/YouGov poll. Nationally, Harris now leads the race 50 percent to 49 percent among likely voters. In battleground states, the race is now tied at 50 percent.
Graham, a senator from South Carolina and one of Trump’s closest allies in Washington, said his candidate should stick to the issues where Harris is weak, rather than causing controversy by referencing Harris’ identity as a biracial woman.
“The problem I have with Kamala Harris is not her heritage, it’s her judgment,” Graham told Fox News on Sunday.
“He’s been wrong about everything. When he tried to explain what he would do about inflation and the looming recession, it didn’t make sense. It was gibberish.”
Lindsey Graham has told Donald Trump what he needs to do to beat Kamala Harris in November after polls showed the vice president catching up to the former president.
Overall, the race is tied according to a new CBS News/YouGov poll. Nationally, Harris now leads the race 50 percent to 49 percent among likely voters. In battleground states, the race is tied at 50 percent.
Graham was questioned about Trump’s comments at a National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago on Wednesday.
Trump told a hostile audience that he “didn’t know” Vice President Kamala Harris was black and thought she was “Indian all the way.”
The former president said Harris “became a black person” after promoting her Indian heritage.
Graham, after citing the diversity of his home state, went on to advise Trump to avoid distractions regarding Harris’ identity.
“Every day we talk about her legacy and not about her terrible and dangerous liberal record throughout her political life. It’s a good day for her and a bad day for us,” Graham said.
“So I would encourage President Trump to pursue the case against Kamala Harris’s poor judgment.”
Graham added that Trump’s first term was “an incredible presidency for national security” and that instead of getting distracted, he should talk about the issues that are strongest for him and weakest for Harris.
“It’s important that you win to restore a broken border and put the world back to rights,” he said. “The American people are looking for their problems to be solved.”
Lindsey Graham, a senator from South Carolina and one of Trump’s closest allies in Washington, said his candidate should stick to the issues where Harris is weak, rather than mocking Harris’ identity as a biracial woman.
“He’s been wrong about everything,” Graham said Sunday. “When he tried to explain what he was going to do about inflation and the recession that was coming, it didn’t make sense. It was gibberish.”
Harris is the first black, female and South Asian vice president, but Trump suggested that his acceptance of black culture was disingenuous.
The drama came with the first question, when he was asked about some of his past comments attacking black journalists and lawmakers, and his meeting with a white supremacist at Mar-a-Lago.
After criticizing her first question on a panel, Trump attacked Harris.
He said: “She always had Indian heritage and she was just promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was black until a few years ago when she became black, and now she wants to be known as black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she black?”
He continued: “And you know what, I respect either of them, but she obviously doesn’t. Because she was Indian through and through and all of a sudden she turned around and became a black person. I think someone should look into that.”
Trump later added on Truth Social: “Crazy Kamala says she is Indian, not black. This is a huge problem. A complete lie. She uses everyone, including their racial identity!”
This came a day after Harris attended a rally in Atlanta with prominent Black lawmakers and cheering supporters.
Trump has been making an intense effort to secure black votes and has had some success.
Donald Trump’s interview with ABC’s Rachel Scott, FOX News’ Harris Faulkner and Semafor’s Nadia Goba got off to a tense start
He held a campaign event in the Bronx and featured “Blacks for Trump” supporters at his rallies.
Harris has seen a surge in the polls after receiving a burst of publicity by running as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in place of 81-year-old Joe Biden.
While the two major parties’ candidates are now statistically tied, the picture was very different for Democrats just two weeks ago, when polls showed Trump with a five-point lead over Biden before he dropped out of the race.
The July poll also showed Trump with a three-point lead in a hypothetical matchup against Harris, but the vice president appears to have eliminated his advantage since assuming the top spot on the ticket.
If third-party candidates are included, Harris leads Trump by 49 to 47 percent among likely voters.
The shift comes at a time when Democrats appear to have closed the enthusiasm gap with the change at the top of the Democratic ticket. The number of Democrats who say they will “definitely vote” has reached its highest point this year so far, according to the poll.
Harris appears to have gotten a boost when it comes to black and female voters compared to when Biden was still in the race.
Seventy-four percent of registered Black voters said they would definitely vote, according to the poll. That’s up from 58 percent who said the same in mid-July, when Biden was the nominee.
Harris with Biden on March 26 in North Carolina. Sixty-four percent of registered voters said Harris and Biden are largely the same on policies, while 18 percent said they are exactly the same.
When it comes to the gender gap, Trump leads Harris among men 54 percent to 45 percent, but when it comes to women the numbers are reversed: Harris leads 54 percent to 45 percent.
Voters see Harris as more forceful, focused and competent. Trump leads among voters in being seen as tough and effective.
When it comes to cognitive health, Trump, 78, no longer has the advantage he had when he faced Biden. Fifty-one percent of registered voters say yes, but 49 percent say no. Sixty-four percent of voters believe Harris is in adequate cognitive health. Only 36 percent say she is not.
When it comes to the key battleground states, All seven races are within the margin of error.
According to the CBS News poll, Harris and Trump are now tied in Arizona at 49 percent, Michigan at 48 percent and Pennsylvania at 50 percent.
In Georgia and North Carolina, Trump leads Harris among likely voters 50 percent to 47 percent, and in Wisconsin 50 percent to 49 percent. Harris now leads in Nevada 50 percent to Trump’s 48 percent.
Despite the shift at the top of the Democratic ticket and the surge in enthusiasm, voters notably don’t see Harris as that different from Biden when it comes to policy.
Sixty-four percent of registered voters said Harris and Biden are mostly alike on policy, while 18 percent said they are completely alike. Only 18 percent saw them as mostly or completely different.
The Trump campaign rejected the shift in polls on Sunday afternoon.
In a memo, they argued that the shift was due to a methodological decision that allowed ideology to shift significantly. The memo claimed that if it weren’t for that, Biden would be leading 51 percent to 49 percent.
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