GOP focuses on Harris and suggests Biden won’t live to 2028

President Joe Biden’s formal announcement that he seeks re-election has led to a boom in pieces on what role Vice President Harris will play, and an explosion of conservative commentary that 2024 is just as much a referendum on her as it is about the candidate at the top of the ticket.

Harris appears prominently and frequently in the president’s official launch video – not just at Biden’s side, but on her own. There’s nothing especially surprising there. She’s the sitting vice president and his running mate. It would have been weird if she had been absent.

In some ways, what’s going on over in the GOP is more interesting, even if the political payoffs are pretty obvious.

• First and foremost, the tactic reminds voters that Biden, at 80, is the oldest president ever and would be 86 when he finishes a hypothetical second term. (Former president Donald Trump, who leads the Republican pack, is 76.)
• It puts the spotlight on a vice president whom GOP base voters dislike even more than they dislike Biden. (Her overall job approval isn’t that much worse than his, though neither possesses enviable numbers.)

Two caveats: The GOP has attacked Harris since she was picked, and the argument didn’t work in 2020 or 2022.