With less than a month to go before November's presidential election, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris launched "Hunters and Anglers for Harris-Walz," an apparent last-gasp effort to dent former president Donald Trump's advantage with male voters.
The coalition was formally launched with a Monday virtual call, organized by the Democratic National Committee, where speakers addressed "protecting our land and water, promoting outdoor recreation, and standing up for common-sense gun laws." The call came shortly after Harris's running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, took reporters on a pheasant hunt on which he struggled to load his shotgun and didn't fire a shot.
The campaign's push to win over hunters, leaders of hunting groups told the Washington Free Beacon, flies in the face of the Biden-Harris administration's track record on hunting issues. Since taking office in 2021, the administration has issued broad restrictions on the types of weapons hunters can use for recreation on public lands, blocked hunting on federal lands, and backed legislation that curbed shooting education in public schools. And sportsmen haven't forgotten.
"Joe Biden and his anointed successors of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have a long history of anti-Second Amendment rhetoric and actions that leave sportsmen and women with concerns that can hardly be patched up by talks of a coalition and sending Tim Walz into a staged pheasant hunt," Lawrence Keane, the senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told the Free Beacon.
"Actions speak louder than words, and these actions show that Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Tim Walz are no friends of the law-abiding gun owners that make up the American sport shooting and hunting community," Keane said. "Those same Americans will not fall for a last-minute ploy that is not a reflection of any genuine belief in Americans' right to protect themselves and concocted in reaction to abysmal polling data."
Hunting advocates have expressed concern for years that the Biden-Harris administration has taken aim at them through making small-scale rules that, when taken altogether, represent significant backdoor attacks on hunting.
The Department of the Interior this month issued a resource management plan for 1.35 million acres of land in Utah's Bears Ears National Monument, completely banning recreational shooting on those lands, in the most recent example of a rule that targets hunters.
"The Harris-Walz campaign is boasting about the last-minute formation of its so-called 'hunters and anglers coalition,' meanwhile, the Biden-Harris controlled White House just banned recreational shooting on more than 1.3 million acres of public lands on the Bears Ears National Monument with zero evidence of user conflicts or public safety concerns," said W. Laird Hamberlin, the CEO of the pro-hunting group Safari Club International.
"It is therefore impossible to view the Harris-Walz 'coalition' and the Bears Ears plan as anything but textbook hypocrisy," Hamberlin said, "courting the votes of America's outdoor sporting community one day while undermining their livelihoods and freedoms the next."
Hamberlin added that the administration has limited motorized vehicle access in remote areas, which he said will disproportionately undercut the ability of older and less mobile hunters to reach hunting grounds. "This attack will discourage the purchase of firearms, ammunition, and related gear," he said.
In another example, the Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations last year banning lead ammunition and fishing tackle across eight national wildlife refuges by 2026. Lead ammunition is generally cheaper than alternatives but is opposed by activists who argue it is harmful for the environment.
"It's a death-by-a-thousand-cuts measure," Gabriella Hoffman, an avid hunter and the director of the Center for Energy and Conservation at Independent Women's Forum, said in reference to the administration's lead ammunition regulations. "It may not feel like a big impact or a big prohibition, but slowly and incrementally, it's going to impact people who are struggling with inflation."
Both Hamberlin and Hoffman also noted that the administration's regulations could have a significant economic impact. Hunting and fishing is a billion-dollar industry, and under the Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937, taxes levied on guns and ammunition fund essential wildlife management and conservation programs.
"Phony photo ops can't mask a track record of supporting bullet bans and closing off millions of acres of public hunting grounds during the last four years," said Luke Hilgemann, the executive director of the International Order of T. Roosevelt (IOTR). "If Kamala Harris were to become president, hunters should expect these assaults to intensify on our outdoor traditions."
"IOTR is working to organize hunters and anglers to speak out before it's too late, and is taking the fight to the state level to pass constitutional protections supporting hunting and fishing rights," Hilgemann continued.
The Harris-Walz campaign didn't respond to a request for comment.
Hunters and anglers represent multiple key demographics with whom the Harris-Walz campaign is eager to make inroads ahead of the election. According to a recent Outdoor Industry Association survey, 77 percent of firearms hunters are male, 76 percent of bow hunters are male, and roughly 80 percent of all hunters are white. And Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan boast some of the largest number of hunting licenses in the country.
Harris is severely lagging Trump among registered white male voters, according to most recent polling, while those states—Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan—may very well decide the outcome of the election.
In addition to launching the Hunters and Anglers for Harris-Walz group and orchestrating Walz's hunt over the weekend, the Harris-Walz campaign has leaned into camouflage and neon orange branding, a color combination often used on hunts. Camouflage-pattern Harris-Walz hats and signage are a staple at most Harris-Walz campaign events. The hat, in particular, has emerged as a status symbol for D.C. liberals.
"It shows me they are desperately looking for votes," Ed Rollins, a longtime GOP strategist, told the Free Beacon. "Unfortunately for them, Trump is very solid with the gun groups and hunters and fishermen. Also, these voter groups are well aware of who are supportive of their issues and it's not Harris who claims to have a handgun in her bedroom for protection."