'The next Obama': Why GOP operatives think Trump should be terrified of Kamala Harris

With the second round of the Democratic debates coming next week, the horse race analysis is reaching peak levels. Should Democrats pick Joe Biden in the hopes of peeling off working class white voters? Is it time to go with a woman or a person of color?

Writing in Vanity Fair, journalist David M. Drucker writes that Trump's biggest fear should be Sen. Kamala Harris, a view affirmed by her tough and effective attacks on Biden at the last debate.

Drucker says that Harris would be a tough opponent because she might drive up the black vote. Additionally, she might appeal to suburban female voters turned off by Trump's style.

“I think she’s dangerous, and probably maybe the most dangerous, from our view,” a veteran Republican political consultant told me this month," a GOP operative told Drucker.

"She made a mistake with private health care,” another Republican operative noted, referencing her inconsistent record on health care."But she doesn’t come across as a nutjob.”

A few compared Harris to Obama. But others disagreed.

"She’s overrated,” a Republican operative, who engaged with Obama, thinks. “Obama had authenticity. She doesn’t."

The former president has abstained from backing any democratic candidate at this juncture.