WASHINGTON — Hey, if it worked for Joe …
Vice President Kamala Harris is set to spend five days lying low in Pennsylvania before her Philadelphia debate with rival Donald Trump — in an apparent attempt to boost her standing in the critical swing state while prepping for the high-stakes showdown.
Harris, 59, leaves for Pittsburgh on Thursday and will remain there until the Sept. 10 ABC News debate.
The Democratic nominee is not yet scheduled to have any campaign events during those five days, but it’s likely she will at least have less formal outings that will bring her into contact with voters in the vital battleground.
The veep’s campout in western Pennsylvania recalls President Biden’s week-long prep at Camp David in rural Maryland for his disastrous June 27 debate with Trump.
During that process, the 81-year-old incumbent napped daily while strategizing with his closest advisers and relatives on how to face off against the 45th president.
Harris is expected be coached by Democratic attorney and “House of Cards” consultant Karen Dunn — no relation to Anita Dunn, who helped prep Biden — and Rohini Kosoglu, who served as Harris’ chief of staff while she was a senator from California.
Both women are well-regarded by insiders for their intelligence — with one source telling The Post that Dunn is known for her “measured” demeanor and Kosoglu for her “kind” touch and loyalty to Harris. Dunn previously helped then-President Barack Obama prep for his 2012 debates.
The vice president is widely expected to use the debate stage to reprise her role as prosecutor to hammer Trump on his pending civil and criminal cases — though she will have to play defense on her performance as Biden’s point person on reducing illegal immigration and on the administration’s economic record, as well as her vacillating positions on major health-care and energy policies.
Trump, 78, has said he isn’t shaking up his method of debate prep and is engaging in policy discussions with some of his closest confidants, but has maintained that his experience speaking as a politician has prepared him for debates.
But there is one major difference in Trump’s debate team: the addition of former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who endorsed the former president last week.
Gabbard famously had a fiery exchange with Harris over her criminal justice record during the 2020 Democratic primary.
The former Hawaii lawmaker said in a recent CNN interview that she thinks Harris is “not to be underestimated” and vowed to help Trump in any way she can.
During prior debates, Harris garnered attention with pointed rebukes of her competitors.
In 2020, she chided then-Vice President Mike Pence by saying “I’m speaking,” in an apparent attempt to paint him as sexist. As a presidential primary candidate in 2019, she told Biden “that little girl was me” while slamming his past opposition to federally mandated interracial school busing.
While the Biden pre-debate plan of cloistering the president for days proved to be disastrous, Harris aides may take a different approach of not strictly focusing on talking points and cramming of facts.
White House aides claimed after the June debate that he was overprepared, and that’s why he ultimately tanked against Trump — rather than the common explanation that he was too elderly and cognitively frail to handle a 90-minute forum.
