'Underestimate her at our peril': Trump campaign says Harris' rise is a 'wakeup call'

Just a week ago, a cocky Trump campaign had been anticipating being able to walk over an 81-year-old President Joe Biden in this fall's elections.

Now, however, the campaign is facing a new Democratic candidate in Vice President Kamala Harris who is not only younger than President Biden — but also younger than the GOP's own candidate.

Trump allies tell The Bulwark's Marc Caputo that they are well aware that the race will no longer be the cakewalk they had once hoped it would be.

"Politics is downstream of culture and Trump was a cultural figure before he was a political one," one Trump adviser tells the publication. "But Kamala is making a run for it. We underestimate her cultural appeal and her power at our peril.”

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Another Trump ally told Caputo that Harris' rise has given them a much-needed reality check about the 2024 race.

“It’s going to be harder. But the team had grown complacent,” a campaign insider told Caputo. “There was all this licking of our chops and what we were going to do in the White House. In some ways, this was a great wake-up call. People are back to work.”

The campaign still hopes it can drag down Harris by tying her to Biden's record on border security and by painting her as soft on crime.

All the same, the campaign now knows it will have to spend more on ads to negatively define Harris than it would have had to spend had Biden remained the nominee.

"What we could have gotten in earned media, we will have to now pay for," the campaign insider said.