STEVE CORTES: Battleground Voters Don’t Trust Harris — She Seems Phony

Voters in Georgia could well decide the next president for America. In a very tight race, their misgivings about Vice President Kamala Harris as an inauthentic and politically expedient candidate may, in fact, prove determinative.

New polling exposes that only a small minority of Georgia voters believe that her major reversals on key policy issues flow from a genuine personal conversion. Instead, they clearly see Harris as a political opportunist willing to make claims that do not reflect her true agenda, merely for the purposes of currying political favor from voters.

Specifically, a new American Greatness/TIPP survey of over 1,000 Georgia voters asked if Kamala Harris’ new positions on several issues were “genuine conversions” or “politically motivated” due to the upcoming election. The survey found that voters expressed “skepticism regarding her motives,” noting that only 31% of respondents said that Harris’ sudden switch on border policy, particularly pertaining to the border wall, was a “genuine conversion.”

Even among Georgia Democrats, a stunning 27% of Harris partisans admitted that Harris’ reversal on the border wall represents a switch that is “politically motivated.” Of course, in such a tight presidential race, independents in the battlegrounds like Georgia become the “holy grail” of electoral politics. Well, in Georgia only 21% of such independents view Kamala’s border shift as “genuine.”

Regarding partisanship, this Georgia poll did not find some rabidly Republican sample universe, as the overall topline horse-race number between Trump and Harris remains deadlocked in a tie, with 48% each. But even among those leaning toward Harris, they rightly express serious skepticism regarding her honesty and authenticity, and for good reason.

After all, even at leftward-biased CNN “found that criticized the border wall more than 50 times during the Trump administration, calling it, among other things, ‘stupid,’ ‘useless,’ and a ‘medieval vanity project.’” CNN explained that “As she tries to strengthen her image on the border, Harris will have to reckon with her years of opposing some of the very policies she now embraces.”

Another left-leaning media outlet reported on this politically-convenient, massive policy shift by Harris, as well. Axios just posted a piece titled “Progressives Hope Harris’ Border Shift Is Temporary.” The column explains that “progressive groups are quietly hoping that Harris’ tough-on-the-border rhetoric is just a posture to help her win in November.”

Well, the sensible voters of Georgia seem to concur with those open borders progressives on this one point, at least: that Kamala temporarily adopts a “posture” and is simply not being honest with the American people. For example, among seniors – who vote at a higher rate than other age demographics, only 26% believe her policy reversal is genuine. Among white men, only 21% believe her border wall about-face is authentic.

Such skepticism flows, in part, from her performance in the Senate, where in 2019 she was scored by the non-partisan GovTrack as the number one most liberal senator in the entire chamber, even though that organization later tried to retract that clear ranking, under pressure from Democrat campaign operatives. In second place for the dubious title of “most liberal senator” was far-leftist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a steadfast Harris ally.

Sanders himself admitted the quiet part out loud, conceding on national television that Harris was simply not on-the-level with the American people about her sudden and marked abandonment of long-held leftist ideas. Kristen Welker of NBC asked Sanders if Harris was “abandoning her progressive ideals,” to which Sanders replied: “I don’t think she is abandoning her progressive ideals, I think she is trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.”

So, in the dishonest and jaded view of a political dinosaur like Bernie Sanders, lying about a major policy reversal is simply “pragmatic.” Thankfully, voters see it differently. The good people of Georgia assign Trump a massive edge on this issue of border security, giving the former president a stunning 22% lead on the subject in this poll, 57-35%.

But even more importantly than the policy preference, the reality of Harris as a dishonest opportunist becomes clearer as voters learn more about the vice president. Not surprisingly, she hides from the media, trying to reveal very little. Since Harris became a presidential candidate, the Trump-Vance ticket has taken countless more interviews and press conferences compared to the Harris-Walz ticket.

Clearly, the American people deserve a presidential candidate who is both transparent and genuine — and willing to face the scrutiny of pointed questions. Voters realize they get none of those attributes from Phony Kamala.

Steve Cortes is former senior advisor to President Trump, former commentator for Fox News and CNN, and president of the League of American Workers, a populist right pro-laborer advocacy group.  

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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