Six House Democrats joined with GOP lawmakers on Thursday to back a resolution condemning Vice President Harris for her handling of the border, underscoring the sensitivity of the issue for the likely Democratic presidential nominee and her party.
The passage of the four-page resolution, led by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), underscores how former President Trump and the GOP want to tie Harris to the border, which has been a weak issue in polling for President Biden.
The six Democrats who voted in favor of the legislation are all in highly competitive races this fall.
Reps. Yadira Caraveo (D-Colo.), Donald Davis (D-N.C.), Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) are in toss-up races in the non-partisan Cook Political Report's race analysis, while Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) are in races that are leaning Democrat.
Only Caraveo has publicly endorsed Harris for the White House.
Cuellar said he looks forward to “supporting the next Democratic nominee for President,” but did not explicitly mention Harris in his statement following Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race. Davis also did not mention Harris in his statement about Biden's exit.
Glusenkamp Perez did not mention Harris in her statement following the announcement from Biden, who quickly endorsed Harris. Glusenkamp Perez said the next president “must clearly be fit enough to do the job, and that fitness must be prosecuted publicly.”
Peltola said earlier this week that she will not be endorsing anyone in the presidential race, but that she would not be voting for former President Trump, the GOP nominee.
Golden, who predicted that Trump is going to win the election before Biden dropped out of the race, told Axios on Thursday that he is "absolutely not" committing to voting for Harris.
The GOP measure takes aim at Harris over her handling of the border, saying “it took Harris “93 days as the border czar before finally visiting the southern border on June 25, 2021.” It cleared the lower chamber in a 220-196 vote Thursday morning.
“President Biden’s and Border Czar Harris’s far left Democrat open border policies are to blame for this historic crisis,” the legislation argues.
Harris does not actually hold an official "border czar" title, but Biden did task her with leading his administration's effort to tackle the root causes of migration from Central America at the southern border in March 2021.
Stefanik said on the House floor Thursday that Harris “has failed in overseeing American safety by refusing to secure the border,” adding that she has “has proved that she is unfit to lead.”
