Kamala Harris may be “shockingly better” than expected, Newt Gingrich says

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich warned in a Friday column for Fox News that Vice President Kamala Harris could be a “shockingly better” presidential candidate than Republicans expect.

On Friday, Harris scored her fifth polling win in 24 hours, narrowing former President Donald Trump’s lead with just over 100 days left until Election Day. A poll released by The Wall Street Journal that was conducted between July 23 and 25 among 1,000 registered voters found that Harris had all but eliminated Trump’s lead, with the vice president trailing the former president by a 49 to 47 percent margin in a head-to-head matchup. The poll has a 3.1 percent margin of error.

President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris on Sunday, was losing to Trump by 6-point margins in both head-to-head and multi-candidate versions of a Wall Street Journal poll taken earlier this month.

In his Friday column, “Take it from me, Republicans: Kamala Harris is a strong candidate. Don’t underestimate her,” Gingrich, a Republican from Georgia who was House speaker from 1995-1999, laid out the issues that he believes Harris is “well to the left of President Biden,” including illegal immigration and corporate taxation.

However, he closes with several warnings to his GOP colleagues about Biden’s vice president turned presumptive Democratic nominee.

“However, Harris will turn out to be a much better candidate than Republicans think. As District Attorney and Attorney General of California, she was an effective litigator. In the Senate, she was an aggressive interrogator, especially with U.S. Supreme Court nominees,” Gingrich wrote. “She reminds me of some athletes who are great at game time but mediocre in practice. The vice presidency was practice, and she loafed through it, letting her laugh be a primary symbol. Now she will be in the real game. She may be shockingly better than Washington Republicans expect.”

Gingrich, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, also noted Harris’ campaign team’s ability to draw from previous successful Democratic efforts.

“Harris will also have the advantage of assembling a team of Obama veterans. The opportunity to defeat Trump will draw them to the campaign. If she listens to them, she will be formidable,” he wrote.

When reached by Newsweek via email for comment, Harris campaign spokesperson declined to comment for this article. Newsweek emailed the Trump campaign, along with Gingrich, Saturday morning for comment.

While early polling suggests that a Trump-Harris contest will likely be close, the momentum seems to have quickly shifted to Harris. The vice president has amassed mostly small but significant gains in at least four other polls of battleground states and young voters on Thursday and Friday.

Dan Lamb, a senior lecturer at the Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University, told Newsweek in a recent interview, “Harris won the week with strong speeches, viral social media” and important endorsements, predicting that her polling position may improve further in the near future.

Lamb added: “It’s hard to see the buzz letting up, with attention turning to her VP pick and the DNC’s delegate voting starting in early August. After that comes the DNC convention. The next several weeks could be very favorable for her polling.”

While the picture may change in coming weeks, Trump continues to hold a clear overall polling advantage over Harris as of Friday.

The former president is also the favorite among bookmakers, with betting website Polymarket giving him a 59 percent chance of winning the election and Harris a 40 percent chance at the time of publication.

In addition, three recent polls show that Trump continues to outperform Harris in several swing states, which will be pivotal to winning the election. The poll results come despite several big Democratic names putting their support behind Harris, including former President Barack Obama.