If you’re wondering why Kamala Harris is exceeding expectations, a new poll may explain.

According to a survey by McLaughlin and Associates, most Americans have no idea what the vice president stands for. (And her campaign is certainly in no hurry to tell them.) Incredibly, “large majorities” of registered Democrats and Independents who voted for Joe Biden four years ago “are largely ignorant of many of the controversial and radical positions Harris has taken,” the researchers explain.

And the left is all too happy to exploit that ignorance and take it to the White House.

A staggering 71% had no idea Harris wanted to defund the police; 73% didn’t know she co-sponsored the Green New Deal; and another 81% had no idea the former California attorney general wanted to end private health insurance. Likewise, they had no idea about her push to abolish ICE (77%), allow death row inmates to vote (86%), or decriminalize illegal immigration (74%).

As for Harris’s unfortunate “most liberal senator” label from GovTrack in 2019 (a label the left has worked hard to remove), that was news to three-quarters of her own party.

When asked where these respondents got most of their information, the most common answers were radio and TV news. Both sources seem to cover Harris’ tracks very well.

Voters need to know what Kamala Harris stands for, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Saturday’s “This Week on the Hill,” “because that’s where she’s always stood.”

Every time the vice president gives up her unpopular positions, “the media just calls it a spin,” Johnson said, shaking his head. “It’s worse. They’re clearly lying to the American people.”

Johnson reminded people that Harris “even in the CNN interview … said that she stands by her old positions that she had when she ran for president in 2019, and that she’s had her entire adult life. That record is very clear. She was clearly on the record and on video multiple times supporting the ban on fracking and opposing the oil and gas industry, the energy industry. She supported allowing illegal immigrants into the country without any legal barriers. She wanted to decriminalize illegal border crossings. She said the border wall was a comical waste of money and it was un-American and all the rest of it. And now she’s trying to dissemble and pretend that she never said those things. We have the record,” the speaker insisted.

At the end of the day, he stressed, “This election is about fact or fantasy. It’s about fact over rhetoric. The stakes are too high now,” Johnson argued, “and I think the American people are going to see right through this ruse. They’re counting on the American people to be unintelligent, and they’re not.” They understand how important it is who’s in charge of the White House and Congress.

And frankly, federal elections are just a small piece of the larger puzzle. So many of the good conservative policies we see across the country come from the local and state levels, where issues like parental rights, girls’ sports, gender ideology, abortion are really debated. In those swing states, Perkins suggested, “Democrats are trying to roll back their really left-wing, radical ideas because they know the American people aren’t there.”

Johnson could attest to that after visiting 198 cities this campaign — and counting. His goal, as party leader, was to recruit men and women who would fight for the basic values ​​that every American holds dear.

“We’ve been very intentional about recruiting candidates this cycle,” he noted, “and we’ve recruited some extraordinary candidates. You mentioned Ohio and North Carolina, two perfect examples. Derek Merrin is running in the ninth district of Ohio… He was the second to become Speaker of the House in the Ohio Legislature… He can flip that seat. That seat has been held for 41 years by a Democrat, Marcy Kaptur, and it’s going to turn red in November.”

In North Carolina, the chairman believes Republicans could win as many as four seats through redistricting. “But one of the places everyone is watching is the district of Lori Buckhout, an extraordinary candidate — a retired Army colonel and a devoted wife and mother.”

However gruelling the weeks have been — “I’ve campaigned in… 39 states as of this afternoon —” Johnson knows how crucial November is for a country hanging by a thread under this administration.

“This is a contrast election,” he reiterated. “We have to make sure that our friends and neighbors and people in the church and the synagogue — everyone in your sphere of influence — are well-informed. You can’t make an emotional decision this time. You have to make a decision based on policy, not personality. … And truth has to prevail here.”

Asked what Bible-believing Christians should pray for as the November election approaches, the House Speaker was thoughtful. “I think we should pray for God’s mercy on our nation,” he said, sounding quite serious. “Sometimes we get the government we deserve, and we should pray that we don’t — that He’ll give us another chance. And I believe He will,” Johnson concluded. “…We’ve got to keep this republic.”