For the past several cycles, Donald Trump has been an anchor around the necks of Republicans running for federal office across the country, forcing them to respond to his every statement of wavering obnoxiousness. “Will you denounce” was practically an autofill statement from journalists, with exasperated Republicans having to suddenly come up with spin on the fly about whatever their top candidate was on about at the moment.
This time around, that weight seems far heavier on Democrats. Witness the reaction to Kamala Harris’s endorsement, after previously calling for getting rid of the filibuster for climate issues and voting rights, to codify Roe v. Wade. The position — in typical fashion, adopted after she previously was emphatically on the opposite side — puts all Senate Democratic candidates in an awkward space of breaking with their presidential nominee or risk being exposed as an anti-democratic radical. What’s more, her off-the-cuff positioning to a public radio interviewer served to deny her an endorsement from Joe Manchin and led to a denunciation from Kyrsten Sinema for an “absolutely terrible, short-sighted idea.”
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