GOP strategist Stuart Stevens suggested in a recent interview that Vice President Harris is running what looks to be “the best presidential campaign ever.”
“I think the Harris campaign is running what we’re probably going to look back at as the best presidential campaign ever run,” Stevens, a former adviser for Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), told Vanity Fair’s Joe Hagan.
“Harris is going to win fairly comfortably. I think Harris is gonna win by a larger margin than 2020. [Republicans are] gonna say this election was rigged, and the Republican Party is going to fail again. And it’s going to be very, very ugly,” Stevens added later.
Stevens also praised the Democratic campaign’s handling of different issues this election cycle.
“The Harris campaign has done a balance of dealing with these issues you would deal with in a normal race — economy, border — while reminding people that this isn’t remotely a normal race,” he said.
Meanwhile, former President Trump’s plan, Stevens noted, is centered on “voter intimidation.”
“There is no plan except voter intimidation,” the strategist said, adding later that “it’s a very chaotic campaign that has no focus.”
When asked about any potential future plans of senior Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita — known for his swiftboating of former Secretary of State John Kerry (D) during his presidential run in 2004 — Stevens cited LaCivita’s prior attacks against the LGBTQ community.
“Well, the closest would be the trans policy attacks. But that’s a policy that was put in place when Trump was president by his own Bureau of Prisons,” he said, referring to 2018 policy changes by the Justice Department that rolled back protections for transgender inmates in federal prisons.
“And there’s two ways to look at it: One, you can say, well, they’re doing it because it’s working; two, they’re doing it because they don’t know what else to do. I think it’s more the latter than the former,” Stevens added.
With the election less than two weeks away, Harris and Trump are neck and neck. The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s polling index shows the vice president with a slight edge over her GOP rival nationally — with 48.7 percent support to Trump’s 47.7 percent.