Michelle Obama was the Democratic candidate Republicans dreaded most as Donald Trump’s opponent in November’s election, a long-time GOP operative has sensationally claimed.
But instead, they made a huge mistake crowning Vice President Kamala Harris for the job, Justin Evans told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.
And that decision means the party has ‘forfeited’ the election which will now be an easy victory for Trump, he said.
‘We are confident we could have beaten Michelle as well,’ added Evans, 40. ‘But she would have been easily the most competitive.’
‘Kamala is a very weak candidate who is closely tied to the White House and Biden agenda,’ said Evans, a longtime GOP operative who worked as a director of special projects for his 2024 presidential run and remains an advisor to the campaign.
‘We don’t even need to rewrite the playbook which we would’ve needed to do with someone outside of the direct White House circles like Michelle.’
Evans was speaking as the GOP gets used to the almost certain fact that Harris, 59, will carry the Democratic flag into November’s election.
Just three days after Joe Biden, 81, announced he would not run for a second term she has already picked up enough delegates to ensure she is on the ballot.
But Evans says that is nothing but good news for the campaign to make Trump, 78, only the second president in history to win back the White House after losing at the polls.
‘Kamala doesn’t change the scenario in any significant way as other new candidates would have,’ he said.
‘We viewed Biden as dead in the water and think she is as well.’
He pointed out that Harris has a long track record going back 20 years and since then she has held continuous public office, first as district attorney for San Francisco, then California attorney general, US senator and vice-president.
‘It’s a record that’s filled with a lot of weaknesses,’ said Evans, 40.
‘There’s a lot of information already available about her, including videos, going back decades.
‘She was a disaster as the border czar, which is going to be a huge issue, and so is the fact that she clearly has been hiding the situation about Biden’s mental frailty, and that’s damaging.
‘She also already ran for president once and her campaign was a complete failure, she didn’t win a single delegate and dropped out before a vote was cast.’
Another issue that will hurt Harris, he said, was her affair with the then-Speaker of the California Assembly Willie Brown that started when he was 60 and she was just 29.
Republicans will bring that up whenever they can, he believes.
He said he suspected Trump’s Truth Social post in which he wrote about her ‘absolutely terrible pole numbers’ was no typo.
Instead, it was more likely part of what will be a concerted effort that will hark back to Harris’s romantic history that also included a fling with former talk show host Montel Williams.
‘There are no accidents,’ Evans said.
‘Kamala has already been exposed on the issue so it’s an easy one to use.’
Harris has an obvious advantage with voters of color, but even that may not help her as much as expected because ‘no one’s going to buy her evolution from being a hardline prosecutor who locked up minor drug offenders, including young African-Americans who are still in prison, to a criminal justice reformer with a strain of weed named after her’, Evans said.
‘Her past record on drugs and crime is something that’s going to cost her votes with Democrats and especially African-Americans. That will hurt her and it’s something our side will hit on.
‘She desperately needs high turnout from the African-American community and that’s not going to happen.
‘Another huge issue is the border,’ he added. ‘We need to keep Republican voters not only engaged but engaged enough to stay motivated to vote – they can’t be apathetic.
‘It’s going to be a major issue that will drive turnout for us.
‘She’s not a great politician, so all President Trump has to do is let her talk.
‘She’s the candidate, but she has no mandate from the voters,’ South Carolina-based Evans pointed out.
‘She’s widely disliked, she’s similar politically to Biden but her policies are more extreme, which is good for us.
‘As a substitute for Biden it’s pretty much a wash. She’s going to be easy to beat,’ he predicted. ‘By picking Kamala, the Democrats have forfeited the race.
‘The state of the race basically hasn’t changed at all with Biden’s withdrawal and her becoming the nominee.’
Evans said that after last weekend’s failed assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, the former president’s shocked supporters were more determined than ever to cast their ballots for him in November. And he won’t lose ‘soft’ GOP voters to Harris that might have defected to another candidate.
‘We’ll pick up disaffected Democrats who are upset about the process that led to her becoming the nominee and Democrats who are angry about having been lied to about Biden.
‘We’ll also get more voter participation, which is extremely important because apathy is our enemy.’
Evans also said that Harris could have difficulty selecting a running mate because those with serious aspirations to become Commander-in-Chief in 2028 and beyond won’t want to be associated with failure.
‘How is she going to convince Shapiro or Newsom or Whitmer to be her running mate in what’s likely to be a losing campaign?’ he asked about the governors of Pennsylvania, California and Michigan.
‘It would be better for them to sit back and run for president in 2028 without having hurt their future chances by playing second fiddle to her and losing.’
He said he believes she will pick Arizona’s US Senator Mark Kelly, the former astronaut, whose wife then-Rep. Gabby Giffords was shot and seriously injured in an assassination attempt in 2012.
‘He’s from a swing state so that’s a positive and he wouldn’t have to give up his Senate seat if Kamala loses – and he doesn’t have 2028 presidential ambitions.’