For most of Kamala Harris’s highly condensed presidential campaign, journalists have frantically tried to figure out her views on foreign policy—or at least the views of those who could potentially be her key advisors. The answer is both simple and unsatisfying: We can’t rule out significant change, but Harris appears to have no strong views when it comes to foreign policy and would likely govern as a continuation of President Joe Biden.
Why, then, is she trying to sell foreign policy as part of her closing pitch to voters?
For most of Kamala Harris’s highly condensed presidential campaign, journalists have frantically tried to figure out her views on foreign policy—or at least the views of those who could potentially be her key advisors. The answer is both simple and unsatisfying: We can’t rule out significant change, but Harris appears to have no strong views when it comes to foreign policy and would likely govern as a continuation of President Joe Biden.
Why, then, is she trying to sell foreign policy as part of her closing pitch to voters?
She has also openly embraced the Never Trumpers. Harris has stumped repeatedly with Liz Cheney in battleground states such as Pennsylvania and effusively thanked Dick Cheney—once Democrats’ bête noire—for his endorsement.
The domestic politics theory here is the idea of cross-partisan alliance against Donald Trump, putting country before politics. At the same time, Harris has made clear that she agrees with Cheney on many aspects of foreign policy. She takes credit for “strengthening our alliances” and promises to ensure that the United States “has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.”
Does this kind of positioning and rhetoric really appeal to the educated suburbanites in swing states? It’s not at all clear this message resonates. At least one poll of voters in key swing states found that more than half of respondents supported decreasing the U.S. military presence overseas; over half believe that foreign-policy elites don’t have their best interests in mind.
The Harris campaign seems to be hoping that voters will respond to declarations of strength. Or perhaps Harris just likes what she hears stumping with Cheney.
Either way, it’s an enormous bet to place a foreign-policy approach that has become increasingly unpopular at the center of her pitch to be president.
The post What Is Harris Selling on Foreign Policy? appeared first on Foreign Policy.
