Harris made several grandstanding stunts at the border and talked about her record on crime and immigration enforcement, and backed off on trans questions where she could (saying she would leave it to the states)

This basically had no impact because the political ads just said she was going to open the border and use your taxes to pay for transing your kids anyway. The Dems can't reasonably change how they're viewed in the media environment and if they do manage to take out a moderate position on something they'll just be seen as the slightly less effective option - once everyone agrees the border needs to be tougher, why not vote for the party that's louder on immigration anyway?