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By Katherine Fung and Andrew Stanton
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It was a line that could have come from the mouth of Ronald Reagan.
Speaking to a group of Michigan autoworkers on Thursday, Kamala Harris played up her support for organized labor a week after the United Auto Workers endorsed her for president. And then she deployed a new talking point that, if you weren't paying attention, could have sounded like she was speaking at a Republican convention.
"We want to recognize the right all people have to freedom and liberty to make choices, especially those that are about heart and home, and not have their government telling them what to do," the vice president said.
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That the Democratic nominee for president would effectively be channeling an argument for smaller government suggests Harris is deftly flipping the script on a classic conservative talking point, according to experts who spoke with Newsweek.
Harris' "carefully crafted statement," as one former RNC official put it, shows her campaign may have found an opening for the ticket to appeal not only to the broader electorate, but specifically to fence-sitting Republicans who are fed up with elements of their party under Trump.
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GOP strategist Alex Patton noted that Trump's rise has shaken up the traditional coalitions, definitions and roles within U.S. politics, leaving many voters asking what it means today to be a Republican or Democrat — and a chance for either party to redefine itself in the eyes of those voters.
"Using the phrase 'not have their government telling them what to do' is so Reagan-esque and appealing to many conservatives that don't identify with MAGA," Patton told Newsweek.
"What this suggests about the Harris/Walz campaign is they are making a play for middle America and those that are questioning their party identification, and I think it is a likely winning play."
Many never-Trump Republicans across the country have rallied behind Harris' campaign.
Last weekend, the "Harris for President" campaign announced "Republicans for Harris," a program designed to "further outreach efforts to the millions of Republican voters who continued to reject the chaos, division, and violence of Donald Trump and his Project 2025 agenda."
Among the never-Trumpers supporting Harris are former members of Congress, like Representatives Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, former Trump White House officials, including Stephanie Grisham and Olivia Troye, as well as former Republican governors and other GOP state-level officials in key battleground states.
"Harris's effort to criticize Republicans as using government to interfere in people's lives could be effective in building political support, particularly for voters who will prioritize reproductive rights and gender-affirming medical care," Meena Bose, executive dean of Hofstra University's Peter S. Kalikow School of Government, Public Policy and International Affairs, told Newsweek.
"Harris's language is more likely to draw voters based on specific policy issues than party affiliation," Bose said.
John Pitney, a professor at Claremont McKenna and former acting director of the Republican National Committee's research department, compared Harris' new tone on the stump to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, recalling that the Republican would often quote Democrat John F. Kennedy's remarks on tax cuts and military strength. He told Newsweek Harris' remarks are "an effort to take control of language that Republicans have used for decades."
Pitney added that it was "no coincidence" Harris' running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, has used his own version of Harris' talking point when speaking of today's GOP: "Mind your own damn business."
While discussing reproductive rights—a winning issue for Democrats, polls routinely show—Walz told the crowds at his first two rallies that it was a "golden rule" for his home state.
"Some of us in here are old enough to remember when it was Republicans who were talking about freedom. It turns out now what they meant was the government should be free to invade your doctor's office," Walz said in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
He continued: "In Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and their personal choices that they make. Even if we wouldn't make the same choice for ourselves, there's a golden rule: Mind your own damn business."
The following day, on the stump in Wisconsin, he took it further: "I don't need you telling us about our healthcare, I don't need you telling us who we love, and I sure as hell don't need you telling us what books we're gonna read."
Pitney said that Harris and Walz's "careful choice of words" are deliberate and likely to help them with voters across the spectrum who value liberty and freedom above party affiliation.
"There is something in it for moderate conservatives who do not want 'their government telling them what to do,'" Pitney said. "But it also appeals to people on other side of the spectrum, too. The word choices alludes to the issue of abortion. Dignity alludes to civil rights. Pride alludes to LGBTQ rights."
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