As former President Donald Trump and other Republicans criticize her record and policy proposals regarding those issues, Harris and her campaign are trying to go on offense, proactively countering concerns, including with a trip to the border on Friday.

Since replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the 2024 Democratic ticket in July, Harris has appeared to be aware of public perception of her, particularly when it comes to immigration and the border as Republicans have sought to increasingly label her as Biden’s “border czar” and polling indicates voters trust Trump more with the policy portfolio.

In addition to being defended by her White House and campaign spokespeople, as well as through millions of dollars of ads, Harris has sought to defend herself, starting during one of her first major rallies of the summer

“I was the attorney general of a border state,” Harris said in Georgia in July. “I went after transnational gangs, drug cartels, and human traffickers that came into our country illegally. I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won.”

But with complaints with respect to her lack of travel to the border, Harris is heading to Douglas, Arizona on Friday to emphasize the importance of border security and how she continues to support the bipartisan border security deal that Trump declined to endorse “for political purposes,” according to a Harris campaign aide.

Harris intends “to argue that American sovereignty requires setting rules at the border and enforcing them,” “that Border Patrol agents, who she will visit with Friday, need more resources to do their jobs,” and that “combating the flow of fentanyl into the country across the border” will be a priority of her presidency,” per the campaign staffer.

“She also plans to reject the false choice between securing the border and creating an immigration system that is safe, orderly, and humane — arguing we must do both to protect our country’s security and enduring legacy as a nation of immigrants,” he said.

The Harris campaign has a new border ad that will air in battleground states from Friday too.

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign remains skeptical of Harris’s border trip, contending, “Kamala’s last-ditch photo op underscores her humiliating desperation.”

“Kamala Harris can’t rewrite history because Americans have been suffering for 3 1/2 years, including the families of Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, and Jocelyn Nungaray, who were brutally raped and murdered by migrant criminals that ‘Border Czar’ Harris welcomed in with promises of mass amnesty and public benefits,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Anna Kelly told the Washington Examiner.

“Inflation is crushing family budgets, the border is wide open, and violent crime is wrecking our neighborhoods,” Kelly said. “Harris isn’t fooling anyone — her pro-criminal, anti-safety policies have brought death and destruction to communities across the country, and only President Trump can Make America Great Again.”

The Harris campaign denies Biden delegated the border writ large to the vice president, asserting that her responsibilities were to manage the root causes of migration.

But to Kelly’s point, Harris’s border trip on Friday comes after her remarks Wednesday before the Economic Club of Pittsburgh, during which she announced a $100 billion in tax credit for manufacturers, and her White House speech Thursday for Biden’s gun executive order, days after she and the president seized on positive FBI crime statistics, citing the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. For example, there was an 11.6% decrease in murder and nonnegligent manslaughter in 2023 compared to the previous year.

Harris’s economic and crime-focused public appearances have been amplified by interviews, including her first solo cable news network sit-down with MSNBC host and former finance executive Stephanie Ruhle.

Although Harris seemed more composed during her interview with Ruhle, she did provide at least one hard to comprehend answer when she was asked about her proposal to reduce federal government bureaucracy that is making the construction of more affordable housing more difficult.

“Some of the work is going to be through what we do in terms of giving benefits and assistance to state and local governments around transit dollars, and looking holistically at the connection between that and housing, and looking holistically at the incentives we in the federal government can create for local and state governments to actually engage in planning in a holistic manner that includes prioritizing affordable housing for working people,” she said.

Then, at the signing ceremony for the gun executive order, which will form an emerging firearms threats task force to study the threat posed by machinegun conversion devices and unserialized, 3D-printed firearms in order to devise an interagency response to them, Harris misspoke by saying “all the survivors that we have lost.” Her comments coincide with her repeated reminders to voters that she owns a pistol, first during her debate against Trump and then during her event with TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

“Let us all agree: This does not have to be this way. We know how to stop these tragedies,” she said in the East Room on Thursday. “I am in favor of the Second Amendment, and I believe we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban and pass universal background checks, safe storage laws, and red-flag laws.”

But while Harris’s favorability rating has improved since becoming the Democratic nominee, her strategy to defend the “unpopular” policies of the Biden-Harris administration is a “bad one,” according to Republican strategist Cesar Conda. Her favorability rating is now net positive, 48.4% favorable-47.7% unfavorable, according to RealClearPolitics.

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“Harris’s interview was a disaster and it appears that Harris avoiding opportunities to defend the unpopular policies of her own administration was a good one,” Conda told the Washington Examiner. “The interview reinforced her complete lack of knowledge of basic economics.”