Leigh Tauss is a newswriter for Raw Story based in Raleigh, N.C. Her work has been picked up by the Associated Press and has appeared in The Washington Post and The Daily Beast, among other outlets.
Before joining Raw Story, Tauss worked as an editor for the Bangor Daily News, a senior staff writer at INDY Week and a reporter for the Meriden Record-Journal. Her writing has received numerous awards from the the North Carolina Press Association, the Green Eyeshade Awards, the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists and the Association of Alternative Newsmedia.
Fox News host Neil Cavuto wonders if Republicans are underestimating Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, whose prosecutorial finesse on the debate stage may pose a serious threat to Donald Trump.
“I’m wondering if Republicans – because they focus on things that seem silly to me, like the cackling and all of that – don’t appreciate the fact this woman could be a barracuda,” Cavuto said during his afternoon broadcast on Fox News Friday. “She is a prosecutor and she will try, in any exchange with Donald Trump, to prosecute him, and I don’t know if they appreciate the magnitude of that.”
Harris served as California attorney general from 2011 to 2017, and before that prosecuted serious drug and violent crimes as a district attorney. She brings serious chops to the debate stage, Cavuto noted, compared to Joe Biden, who performed disastrously against Trump in June.
“She's very good at speaking in complete sentences and succinctly,” Cavuto said. “I’m just curious how that alone changes the dynamics… Now it’s a totally different game.”
Trump appeared to backpedal from debating Harris on television, saying he won’t commit to scheduling a debate until she has been confirmed as the official party nominee. Republicans have good reason to be worried, said political strategist Doug Shoen.
“Republicans were lulled into a false sense of security in the spring when she was polling lower than the already weakened Joe Biden,” Shoen said. “I think the jolt of energy she has gotten has energized Democrats.
“If I were the republicans, I would be very nervous now,” Shoen said.