Harris finds her footing. She’s still looking to break through.

As Kamala Harris was mulling her midterm pitch over the summer, she made a departure from the White House script.

The vice president was, she conveyed privately, not interested in echoing the phrase “ultra MAGA,” a slogan pushed by the White House to ridicule Republicans embracing Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement.

It wasn’t so much that Harris questioned its potency with voters, two people familiar with the conversations told POLITICO. She wanted to be direct in describing the threat she saw from far-right Republicans. Harris indicated she viewed...