Two Republican strategists, one of them an adviser to former president Donald Trump, have condemned their party’s “gratuitous” and “offensive” attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris for not having biological children, arguing it’ll blow their chances with women voters in November.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders was the latest GOP official to make the baffling charge that having stepchildren is somehow a knock on Harris’ character, and did it with Trump by her side at a rally in Michigan Tuesday.
“My kids keep me humble,” she told the crowd. “Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.” Huckabee Sanders also mispronounced Harris’ first name, something Trump has repeatedly and deliberately done.
Republicans have been unable to refrain from making weird remarks about Harris not having biological children. Most notably, unearthed comments that Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, made in 2021, referring to Harris as a “childless cat lady” earned widespread condemnation earlier this year. Hordes of right-wing commentators, meanwhile, have attacked Harris’ family, including her stepchildren.
Jon McHenry, a Republican pollster and strategist, told the Boston Globe that what Huckabee Sanders said amounted to “a gratuitous slap” and cautioned that more anti-women rhetoric from Republicans could drive down support in areas key to victory in November.
“The Trump campaign needs to minimize the gender gap,” he told the Globe. “Those comments, rightly or wrongly, are taken a lot more seriously by women voters than male voters, and the places that Donald Trump needs to not necessarily win but minimize losses, like the suburbs, are places that I think that’s going to have an outsized effect.”
A poll by The New York Times/Siena College released Thursday shows Harris has a 14-point national lead among likely women voters. Overall, Harris and Trump are locked in a dead heat at 47 percent, according to the survey.
Trump campaign senior advisor Bryan Lanza also expressed outrage after hearing Huckabee Sanders’ remarks.
“I, too, was blessed to have a stepmother,” said Lanza, in an appearance on CNN NewsNight. “I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be able to have normal conversations, without a stepmother.”
“I found that comment to be offensive,” he added. “I’m dissapointed in Sarah, I’m sure I’m going to get criticism from the campaign, but I have to defend somebody who was a stepmom. It’s a tough job, it’s usually a difficult dynamic… and we should reward that.”
