The Harris Campaign's War On Weird

Democrats' attacks on Trump and Vance for being "just plain weird" are already working wonders.

LEFT: U.S. Republican Presidential nominee former President Donald Trump. Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images. MIDDLE: Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images. RIGHT: Republican vice presidential candidate, and U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH). Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

As Kamala Harris has seamlessly taken over the Democratic campaign for president from Joe Biden, there’s also been a dramatic shift in messaging that seemed to happen both overnight and organically.

Going after the Republican ticket for their extreme positions on policy will no doubt be a staple of the Harris campaign’s messaging over the next 98 days. But in the week-plus since Harris’s campaign launch, Democrats have begun to get real traction with a much simpler attack line: 

Donald Trump and JD Vance are just plain “weird.”

This snarky social media-friendly messaging strategy seems custom-made for a younger candidate like Harris. But it has the added benefit of being true, reinforced daily by the words of the GOP candidates themselves.

And now that the media no longer has Joe Biden’s age to consume our every waking moment, the endless stream of bizarre things Trump and Vance both say and do is suddenly getting the scrutiny it deserves.

The “Trump and Vance are weird” strategy is brilliant because it is multi-purposed. It encompasses everything from Donald Trump’s bizarre fixation on Hannibal Lecter and sharks, to the rumors that JD Vance had sex with his couch and searched on Twitter for dolphin porn. But it also importantly extends to their policy positions that are wildly out of touch with the American people.

And you can’t argue with results. Not only is the media paying attention to the “Republicans are weird” attack, but the message is clearly getting under Republicans’ skin.

Take Vivek Ramaswamy’s recent post on X over the weekend, in which he tried to shame Democrats for the tactic:

Quite rich for someone who supports Donald Trump to complain about “dumb and juvenile” political attacks. And as AOC perfectly put it in response to Ramaswamy:

She’s right. It’s important for people to know just how weird and creepy their policies are because in politics, “weird and creepy” is not a winning combination.

As The Daily Beast’s Joanna Coles said on The Beat With Ari Melber on Monday:

“No one wants to sit with the weird people. You want to sit with the popular people or the cool people, you don’t want to sit with the weird people. And they’ve coined that really nicely.”

In today’s piece, I’ll take a look at ways this new attack is being deployed by the Harris campaign, Democratic surrogates, and social media creators who have taken it up and run with it. I’ll explore how it seems to be shifting the vibes of the race and look at whether Democrats should be concerned that it might backfire.

As we get closer to the election, we’ll continue to break down political strategies and attacks across both parties, like the ones above. If you find pieces like this helpful and you’re financially able to, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support our work today.

How It Started…

The “weird” attack on Trump and Vance is credited to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who has been using the word to describe Trump and his Republican sycophants for a while. But it only started to gain traction last week in the wake of Kamala Harris’s launch of her campaign for president. 

Last Tuesday, July 23, Walz went on Alex Wagner Tonight, and said pointedly:

“These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room. That’s what it comes down to and don’t get sugarcoating this, these are weird ideas.”

Then, as if to prove Walz’s point, Donald Trump went on one of his tangents about Hannibal Lecter at one of his rallies, and Walz doubled down.

Then this past weekend, at a Minnesota rally for Harris volunteers, as the message began to go viral, Walz elaborated on the reason he landed on “weird” as an effective attack on the likes of Trump and Vance.

“These guys are just weird, that’s what they are. It isn’t much else. Don’t give them the power. Look, are they a threat to democracy? Yes. Are they going to take our rights away? Yes. Are they going to put people’s lives in danger? Yes. Are they going to endanger the planet by not dealing with climate change? Yes. They are going to do all that. But don’t lift these guys up as if they’re some kind of hero. A bully has no self-confidence, a bully has no strength. The fascists depend on fear. The fascists depend on us going back. But we’re not afraid of weird people. We’re a little bit creeped out but we’re not afraid.”

For Walz, labeling Trump and Vance as “weird” serves to defang them, and take away their power. This gives permission to mock them as the insecure schoolyard bullies they are rather than react in fear of the dire consequences of their return to power. 

And it is clearly resonating.

How It’s Going…

As Walz’s “weird” attack has gained steam and gone viral, many have seen his VP chances rise as well, especially since many of his fellow contenders have begun using the line, as did Harris herself at an event on Saturday.

Harris’s social media and communications team has been leaning into the “weird” attack as a way to draw attention to the extremism of the Republican ticket.

Whether it’s Vance’s support for a national abortion ban:

And…

Or Donald Trump’s fixation on Kamala Harris’s laugh:

And this TikTok slide-show takedown of Vance from the KamalaHQ account is amazing.

The number of Harris surrogates using the “weird” frame for Trump and Vance has since multiplied, including Senator Chuck Schumer who called Vance “more weird, more extreme, more erratic;” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg who appeared on The Daily Show and mocked Vance for “how odd he turned out to be;” and even Hillary Clinton, who declared on X:

It has also taken root online with a life of its own.

And now the messaging is actually driving an entire ad campaign from the Won’t PAC Down PAC, whose ad is titled “These Guys Are Just Weird.”

The PAC’s organizing principle is:

“Inspired by Project 2025 and the bizarre beliefs of JD Vance, the weirdos are organizing. They’re voting. Are you?”

You can watch the creepy AF ad below.

But Could It Backfire…?

As with most things in politics, as soon as something starts to go well for Democrats, The New York Times has to weigh in to explain why it’s actually bad for Democrats.

Such is the case with the famously pearl-clutching Thomas Friedman, whose new hot take on the Democrats’ “weird” messaging is titled

“Democrats Could Regret Calling Trump and His Supporters ‘Weird’”

In his piece, Friedman raises concerns that such an attack line could inadvertently bolster Trump.

It plays right into Trump’s appeal to his followers that he is taking the slings and arrows of elites for them. It is a distraction from the big argument that Democrats should be running on: How we can renew the dignity of work and the dignity of working men and women.”

As Friedman elaborates:

It is now a truism that if Democrats have any hope of carrying key swing states and overcoming Trump’s advantages in the Electoral College, they have to break through to white, working-class, non-college-educated men and women, who, if they have one thing in common, feel denigrated and humiliated by Democratic, liberal, college-educated elites. They hate the people who hate Trump more than they care about any Trump policies. Therefore, the dumbest message Democrats could seize on right now is to further humiliate them as “weird.”

“It is not only a flight from substance,” noted Prof. Michael J. Sandel of Harvard, author of “The Tyranny of Merit: Can We Find the Common Good?” “It allows Trump to tell his supporters that establishment elites look down on them, marginalize them and view them as ‘outsiders’ — people who are ‘weird.’ 

This is a deeply flawed analysis. Democrats are not calling the average Trump supporter “weird.” It is very specifically directed at Republican leaders—in particular punching up at Trump and Vance—and pointing out their most bizarre behavior and fringe beliefs, something the media had until this past week simply let slide. 

As Tim Walz said last week, it’s time to shatter the myth that the billionaire real estate developer and the hedge fund manager are somehow the voices for everyday Americans. Part of the point here is to expose Trump and Vance as the frauds they are and to isolate them from their base. 

And it seems to be working.

Hell, even Newsmax is wondering if JD Vance “has a problem.”

The “weird” attacks on Republicans are a far cry from Michelle Obama’s 2016 plea to Democrats to “go high” when Republicans “go low.”

But, well, we know how that election turned out.

The Vibe Shift…

But if, as I wrote back in May, there was a very distinct reason Joe Biden couldn’t seem to pull ahead of Donald Trump regardless of the success of his first term, regardless of his being on the right side of the issues, regardless of Donald Trump’s being a convicted felon: “It was all about the vibes.”

And thanks to a week’s worth of viral attacks on Donald Trump and JD Vance as “weird” and “extreme” and “bizarre,” the vibes have shifted.

In an analysis titled The Kamala Harris Vibe Shift, writer Jess Bidgood writes:

Call it the Kamala Harris vibe shift. A presidential race that felt to many Democrats like a dispiriting slog toward an all-but-certain defeat by Trump suddenly feels lighter. Hopeful. People are even feeling … is that joy? [...]

Campaigns are not won and lost on vibes alone. But they can encourage voters to open their wallets and volunteer their time — and right now, the buoyant mood among Democrats is translating into early signs of strength for the campaign.

And as the vibes have shifted, so have the polls, showing Kamala Harris’s favorability surging in swing states.

And in head-to-head match-ups with Trump, Harris first returned to a tie last week:

To now pulling slightly ahead this week.

And…

Even in Pennsylvania!

In this same poll, Senator Bob Casey is ahead of his Republican rival by 5 points, signaling that in the matter of one week, Kamala Harris has erased the deficit Joe Biden was running with Democratic Senate candidates.

For now, this is political gold for Harris, and by the looks of things, far from playing into Donald Trump’s hands, he has been caught completely flat-footed by his change in fortune. 

That said, it is important to note that the Harris campaign can walk and chew gum at the same time. High-minded policy attacks are not being passed over in favor of attacks on their “weirdness.”

In fact, just yesterday, as Iowa’s 6-week abortion ban went into effect, Harris signaled her intention to continue to hit Republicans on their extreme abortion position and saddle Trump with every abortion ban in the country, naming each “a Trump abortion ban.”

Let’s go! 

98 days to defeat those weirdos.

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