Vice President Kamala Harris, who finally released a policy page on her website Sunday, lifted multiple parts of the page directly from President Joe Biden’s platform, the New Republic reported.
"They finally added an ‘Issues’ section to her website. … Unfortunately for Harris, its release was undermined by a simple but telling error: The page’s source code revealed that parts of the platform were copied directly from Biden’s campaign page," wrote the New Republic’s senior editor Alex Shephard.
The revelation undercuts Harris's effort to distance herself from the Biden-Harris administration’s dismal policy record and emerge as the "candidate of change." While Harris titled her platform, "A New Way Forward," her copying multiple sections from Biden’s campaign page casts doubt on her promise to forge her own course.
Harris’s policy page included metadata with language urging voters to reelect Biden, the New Republic reported Monday, showing that her campaign copied at least parts of the platform from Biden's page. The Harris campaign has since updated the metadata, deleting the reference to the octogenarian, but sections of the webpage, such as Harris's position on the Israel-Hamas war, remain very similar to Biden's.
For weeks as her party’s nominee, Harris failed to lay out a clear, detailed platform, repeatedly dodging interviews and press conferences. Her only sit-down interview, aired on CNN in late August, did little to ease voter concerns about her policy record as vice president.
Harris’s team also walked back her positions on several key issues—ranging from the border wall and Medicare for All to taxing tips and a fracking ban—prompting Republican nominee Donald Trump to label the Democratic nominee a "flip-flopper."
Trump’s campaign site, meanwhile, has long featured a list of his policy goals, which include ending the illegal immigration crisis, curbing inflation, implementing large tax cuts for workers, and making American cities "safe, clean, and beautiful again."
A New York Times poll on Sunday shows Trump with a slim lead over Harris nationally, suggesting that Harris’s gains from her sudden rise to the top of the Democratic ticket—what critics have dubbed her "honeymoon period"—may be over.