THE BUZZ: STAYING ON SCRIPT — Vice President Kamala Harris is sticking to her talking points about abortion on the campaign trail — even as controversy swirls around President Joe Biden’s age and Donald Trump’s criminal conviction. At a campaign fundraiser in San Francisco on Wednesday, Harris didn’t address a bruising report from The Wall Street Journal that raised new concerns about Biden’s mental fitness. The piece quoted former Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy asserting that Biden is “not the same person” due to his mental decline. Nor did Harris mention Trump’s conviction last week on 34 felony counts over his role in a hush-money scheme. She avoided the verdict despite holding an event in San Francisco one day before the former president was scheduled to hold his own fundraiser in town, with tech billionaires David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya. What Harris did and didn’t say is notable given how Team Biden has increasingly sought to use her as a messenger along the trail: Though Harris has struggled to buck her poor approval ratings in national polls, the campaign still sees her as a way to boost enthusiasm among two key constituencies that, polls suggest, will help determine if Democrats hold the White House: women and Black voters. Harris’ brief 10-minute speech was, instead, intensely focused on her argument that a second Trump presidency poses an existential threat to abortion access, the rights of LGBTQ+ people, voting rights for people of color and other freedoms. “Everything is at stake in this election,” Harris told a boisterous crowd of about 100 donors crowded into The Chapel, a trendy concert venue and bar in the Mission neighborhood. It's not like Harris hasn't jabbed Trump over his conviction ("the reality is cheaters don’t like getting caught," she told late night host Jimmy Kimmel earlier this week). Still, her decision to not gloat over the verdict, even when speaking to liberal crowds in the Bay Area, is notable. Her San Francisco speech was another example of how Harris has been laser-focused on framing the stakes that the presidential election poses for Democrats, especially on women’s reproductive rights, as she tries to boost Biden’s embattled campaign. Two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Harris has emerged as the administration’s top surrogate on abortion. Harris has relied on the same abortion-centered message as she speaks to voters in crucial swing states — including Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada — as well as the party's liberal base in deep-blue regions like the Bay Area. Assemblymember Mia Bonta was part of an envoy that greeted Harris on the tarmac at the airport on Wednesday and accompanied her to a fundraiser at a home in the Oakland Hills, where donors paid a minimum of $5,000 per person to hear Harris speak and mingle under a backyard tent with panoramic views of the San Francisco Bay. (Harris was also greeted at the airport by Attorney General Rob Bonta, Mia’s husband, and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis.) In their conversations, Mia Bonta said the vice president was still focused on her concerns about Trump’s threat to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, with just 153 days left to go until Election Day. “We overemphasize age and don’t focus on basic things like not having felons for president,” Bonta told Playbook afterward. Carrie Barnes, a vice chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, attended Harris’ speech at The Chapel and said it felt like the vice president is finding her “flow” as she drives home the ways that Trump could fundamentally change basic civil rights. “It’s smart for Kamala to talk directly about kitchen table issues,” Barnes told Playbook. “[Biden’s] values are the same regardless of his age.” GOOD MORNING. Happy Thursday. Thanks for waking up with Playbook. You can text us at 916-562-0685 — save it as “CA Playbook” in your contacts. Or drop us a line at lkorte@politico.com and dgardiner@politico.com, or on X — @DustinGardiner and @Lara_Korte. WHERE’S GAVIN? Nothing official announced.
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