Trump’s ‘Lie Machine’ Is Failing: Kamala Harris Remains Popular Despite Attacks

Despite persistent efforts by former President Donald Trump and his campaign to drive up Vice President Kamala Harris’s unfavorable ratings, polling data shows their attempts are falling flat. According to polling averages from FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics, Harris’s favorability ratings have trended positively, while Trump’s remain mired in the negative.

In his Off Message newsletter, progressive writer Brian Beutler argued that Trump’s inability to damage Harris’s reputation demonstrates that his “lie machine” is no longer working as effectively as it once did. Beutler pointed out that Trump’s tactics, which have successfully smeared other high-profile Democrats in the past, seem to be losing their edge.

Failed “Swift Boat”-Style Campaigns

To underscore his point, Beutler referenced the failed “Swift Boat”-style campaign waged against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’s running mate. In that case, Republicans attempted to undermine Walz’s military service by taking out-of-context comments and innocent misstatements from his two-decade political career to paint him as a fraud. “They lied about his gubernatorial record and tried to insinuate that he was a predator and a pervert,” Beutler wrote, noting that the tactics mirrored those used against past Democratic figures like John Kerry, Max Cleland, and Hillary Clinton.

Despite these efforts, Walz remains the most favorably viewed of the four candidates at the top of the ticket. “It all amounted to nothing,” Beutler concluded, adding that Trump’s attempts to smear Harris have similarly failed to stick.

Trump’s Popularity Remains Low Despite Assassination Attempts

What makes this even more striking, according to Beutler, is that Trump has not been able to boost his own favorability ratings, despite having been the target of two separate assassination plots in recent months. Normally, such extreme circumstances might garner sympathy or at least temporarily improve a politician’s public image. However, Trump’s favorability remains stubbornly low.

Beutler suggests that part of the reason for this is Trump’s refusal to change his behavior or rhetoric. Rather than expressing remorse for past divisive statements or pledging to tone down his rhetoric, Trump has only escalated his false claims. Recently, he spread a bizarre lie about Haitian immigrants eating people’s pets—a statement that has been widely discredited but continues to fuel his base.

Trump’s Rhetoric No Longer Resonates with the Public

“The Trump we have, and the sleazy pretenders who mimic him, have taken the opposite tack of claiming Democrats keep trying to kill him,” Beutler wrote. While acknowledging that this is both “gross and untrue,” Beutler emphasized that the larger issue is that Trump’s lies no longer resonate with anyone outside of his most loyal supporters.

“Nobody outside Trump’s existing pool of supporters has time for his s–t anymore,” Beutler contended, arguing that even those who may have once supported him recognize that Trump has created the very chaos that now threatens him. As Trump’s approval ratings continue to stagnate, it appears his attempts to drag down opponents like Kamala Harris are not only ineffective but may also be backfiring.

Ultimately, Beutler’s analysis suggests that the “lie machine” Trump has relied on for years is breaking down, and the political playbook that once worked so well for him may no longer hold the same power. With Harris’s popularity holding steady and Trump’s favorability sinking, the former president’s strategy seems to be losing its impact as the 2024 election approaches.