Still Time to Define Kamala Harris for Voters

The punditocracy is convinced that Donald Trump’s campaign had one objective in the days immediately following Kamala Harris’s assumption of her party’s reins from Joe Biden: “Define Harris early.” And it’s not as though the campaign didn’t try. Ultimately, however, the consensus verdict is that the Trump camp’s narrow window to act has now closed.

“Donald Trump’s campaign had to take her down early or at least hit her hard—and didn’t,” the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan wrote. And because failure is an orphan, the blame for missing this opportunity has fallen at Trump’s feet. “A number of Republicans have publicly and privately worried Trump’s freelancing has undermined the campaign’s efforts to define Harris early on,” according to Semafor’s Shelby Talcott.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.

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The punditocracy is convinced that Donald Trump’s campaign had one objective in the days immediately following Kamala Harris’s assumption of her party’s reins from Joe Biden: “Define Harris early.” And it’s not as though the campaign didn’t try. Ultimately, however, the consensus verdict is that the Trump camp’s narrow window to act has now closed.

“Donald Trump’s campaign had to take her down early or at least hit her hard—and didn’t,” the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan wrote. And because failure is an orphan, the blame for missing this opportunity has fallen at Trump’s feet. “A number of Republicans have publicly and privately worried Trump’s freelancing has undermined the campaign’s efforts to define Harris early on,” according to Semafor’s Shelby Talcott.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.