ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The shape of the presidential race has changed drastically in the last 24 hours. If Kamala Harris does become the Democratic nominee, she will not only have to mobilize her party and turn out the base. She'll also have to win over undecided and swing voters and maybe even moderate Republicans. Sarah Longwell is a lifelong conservative, Republican strategist and self-described never-Trumper. She publishes the anti-Trump opinion website The Bulwark. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
SARAH LONGWELL: Thanks for having me.
SHAPIRO: Just to start with the day or so since the news broke, what conclusions have you reached about how Biden leaving the race reshapes this campaign?
LONGWELL: Well, look. The Trump campaign very much wanted to run against Joe Biden, and they have set the frame of this race as about age. So the fact that now Donald Trump is going to be the oldest presidential nominee in American history is a frame that they're going to have to live with. And the fact that Kamala Harris is younger, the fact that she can come in and prosecute a case against Donald Trump is something that we didn't have before with Joe Biden.
SHAPIRO: I want to get to what that would look like, but first, can I play you something that you said on "The Bulwark Podcast" just a couple of weeks ago? And I'd love for you to respond to this.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE BULWARK PODCAST")
LONGWELL: Nobody could have beaten Donald Trump in 2020 other than Joe Biden. God bless him. Now he has got to do the right thing. He could step away, and he could bless other candidates. And it would be unprecedented, but he could do it, and they would beat Donald Trump.
SHAPIRO: So he did what you called for, but my question is why? If, four years ago, Biden was the only person who could defeat Donald Trump, why do you think, this year, someone else could do it?
LONGWELL: Well, I think a lot has changed, not the least of which is that Donald Trump staged a coup and refused to accept the results of the last election. Donald Trump has a lot more liabilities going into 2024 than he had going into 2020. The problem was that Joe Biden also had far more liabilities going into 2024. Voters did not believe he could complete four more years of the job. There's a reason we called them the double haters. They really did hate Donald Trump, did not want to vote for him again. However, they didn't feel like it was responsible to vote for Joe Biden. And so now there's an opportunity. And look. Kamala has to perform. She has to show people that she can do this. But I do think that there's a real opportunity here for Democrats to win.
SHAPIRO: All right. You talked to a lot of swing, persuadable, soft Republican voters. And those people tell you they don't have the most positive view of Kamala Harris, but they don't know her very well. So what do you think Harris, if she is the nominee, needs to do to win those people over?
LONGWELL: I think the No. 1 thing that Kamala Harris has to do is put on her prosecutor hat and go on offense against Donald Trump. I think that if this race becomes about Kamala, that's not the best situation for her. But I do think that what Kamala can do that Joe Biden couldn't is prosecute a case against Donald Trump, the felon. I also just think the energy, the vitality in a race that was stagnant and dominated by very old men can do a lot for her with swing voters.
SHAPIRO: I understand the argument that she needs to prosecute Donald Trump, but do voters also need to know what kind of a president she would be, particularly as Republicans try to saddle her with the immigration policies of the Biden administration and other policies that might not be very popular that she helped implement as Biden's vice president?
LONGWELL: Look. I think that Kamala Harris has a unique opportunity to try to own the popular parts of the Biden presidency and to distance herself from the parts that were less popular.
SHAPIRO: The things you liked - that was me. The things you didn't - that was him.
LONGWELL: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: That's the argument.
LONGWELL: I mean, but she gets that opportunity. And look. She is going to have to explain to voters who she is. She is going to have to find her own voice. And look. If I was her campaign manager, I would certainly distance myself from some of her more progressive policies that she laid out in 2020. There was a reason the voters picked Joe Biden. And it was because he was a more moderate candidate that they thought could defeat Donald Trump. She is going to have to find a space where she can pick up some of those more moderate voters. And I think she can do that.
SHAPIRO: State the obvious. She's a woman of color from California, and Biden is a white guy famously from Scranton. What impact do you think that has on the kinds of voters who you talk to the most?
LONGWELL: A lot of the voters that I am talking to - they are white, college-educated, suburban voters or white non-college voters. And oftentimes people sort of assume that they might not be comfortable with a woman of color. I don't necessarily think that's true. A lot of these voters are Obama voters. For them, it is much more about, does this person seem like a crazy progressive, or do they seem like somebody who's going to be rational and I can trust them on some of the issues that I care about most, with the economy, with crime, with immigration? Immigration is one of those issues where Democrats are enormously vulnerable. It's one of the places that she is going to get attacked. But now that the Biden administration does have a tougher policy on the border, she can own that. That is her choice, and she should lean into that.
SHAPIRO: Sarah Longwell is a Republican strategist and executive director of the organization Republican Voters Against Trump. Thanks for your insights.
LONGWELL: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
