When Sen. Chris Murphy, a high-profile Democrat, took the stage on the third night of the Democratic National Convention, he focused on what has long been thought of as a vulnerability for Democrats: the border.
Murphy blamed former President Donald Trump for the death of the bipartisan border bill the Connecticut senator led through the Senate in May. He highlighted that the legislation would have given $20 billion in new border security and authorized the president to shut down the border.
“Donald Trump’s allies weren’t just in the room, they helped us write the whole bill,” Murphy said. “One Republican said it would have had almost unanimous support if it weren’t for Donald Trump. Trump killed that bill, and he did it because he knew that if we fixed the border, he’d lose his ability to divide us.”
That Murphy took the stage and chose to focus on the border shows just how comfortable Democrats have gotten in recent months with going on the offensive in this policy area, which could be one of the deciding issues of the election. On Wednesday, the convention was a sign of just how much this was the case.
“When [Trump] killed the border bill, he just made our job harder. Now Kamala, on the other hand, has been fighting border crime for years,” said Javier Salazar, the sheriff of Bexar County, Texas.
Republicans have tried to make the border an issue for Democrats up and down the ballot for years, and have done so for Vice President Kamala Harris as she runs for president. They have repeatedly tied her to the issue by pointing to her positions as a 2020 presidential candidate, like limiting deportations, and her work as vice president, where her portfolio has included Central America and immigration issues.
But even Harris spoke to the issue in a video showing her pledge to bring back the bipartisan border-security bill if she’s elected.
“He tanked, tanked the bipartisan deal because he thought it would help him win an election, which goes to show Donald Trump does not care about border security, he only cares about himself,” Harris said at a rally in Atlanta at the end of July to kick off her campaign.
For Democrats to focus so much on the border is still a gamble. Polls continually show that voters trust Trump over Harris on immigration. As recently as this week, Republicans were arguing that Democrats weren’t focused on the issue, with Trump saying on Tuesday in Michigan that Harris allowed “hordes of illegal alien criminals to stampede into our country.”
But Democrats have reason to believe they have better footing on the issue than in the past, including evidence from a special election earlier this year in a critical battleground House district.
Rep. Tom Suozzi, who also spoke at the convention Wednesday night, flipped his congressional seat from red to blue with a message focused on the border. Suozzi, who’s argued that “the border is broken,” encouraged Democrats to face an issue some have long denied.
“But this year, when Democrats and Republicans worked together to finally write new border laws, we were blocked. We all know who sabotaged us,” Suozzi said from the stage, in a jab aimed at House Republican leadership. House Speaker Mike Johnson made it clear that the border bill was a nonstarter in the House, because it didn’t go as far as House Republicans would have wanted.
Suozzi’s race was seen as a bellwether on the issue, and the results encouraged other Democrats to run more aggressively. Harris is at the center of this messaging shift, running a campaign ad earlier this month that touts her background as a “border-state prosecutor” who went after drug cartels.
In her remarks, Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar highlighted Harris’s trip to El Paso, where she met with law enforcement, migrants and human-rights advocates.
“She recognized that the situation at the border is complicated, as filled with opportunities as it is with challenges,” Escobar said. “All Republicans have to offer is demonization and bluster. Democrats have solutions.”
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Katherine Swartz is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.