WASHINGTON — Even as polls show the presidential race is rigged, Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to avoid risk as some Democratic strategists and activists fail to capitalize on the excitement surrounding her entry. july
Up until this point, Harris has refused to engage in free interactions with voters, such as town hall-like events or media interviews, to meet with Democrats who might present his authentic self and make people more comfortable with his sudden emergence at the top of the ticket. to say
“They’re trying to keep him out,” Steve Shurtleff, a former Democratic speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, said of the Harris campaign. “It’s like seeing your favorite Hollywood actor and then they’re on a talk show and they can’t even talk.
“The president of the United States should always be able to stand up and answer questions,” he said. “He’s clearly avoiding one-on-one interviews and voters deserve better.”
Harris campaign aides say he will enter new forums in the coming weeks and have a chance to provide more information about his personality and character. He is being interviewed by CBS News’ “60 Minutes” as part of an election special that will air next week. And he’s expected to appear on late-night talk shows, as has fellow running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
At this late stage in the race, the open questions are whether Harris can build on his early momentum and leave a positive impression on this segment of undecided voters.
Early voting has already begun in some states, and Harris has been sidetracked by the devastating damage caused by Hurricane Helene in recent days.
Interviews and town halls aren’t the only way to reach voters — his campaign is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on ads targeting swing voters, but it may not be enough.
NBC News survey Last month, as Harris entered the final sprint to Election Day, a segment of voters found they still had doubts about how he would be president: 13% said they were “uncertain and concerned” whether he would do a good job.
Others say that Harris’s campaign acted as if it was in the lead, even though it couldn’t break away from its rival, former President Donald Trump.
“The campaign is taking advantage of the fact that the clock is running out and Trump’s weaknesses will be enough to win,” said Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist. “But the danger is that if you don’t define your candidacy well enough, people will start defining it themselves.”
Walz’s performance in Tuesday’s vice presidential debate raised new doubts about the Democrats’ loyalty. He has shown a caution that some Democrats say hampered the campaign. In an able, if largely workmanlike, display, Walz, when Harris chose him as his running mate, the campaign played down his natural exuberance.
“It was a mistake to shield Walsh and Harris from interviews,” said one Democratic lawmaker. “It’s like playing basketball – if you don’t play for weeks, you’re not going to put it into the game and you’re not going to do well. You should be in court.
“I would show them very widely there,” said the MP.
Walz took refuge in part so he had time to prepare for the debate, and now he’ll mix it up with voters more spontaneously in the coming weeks. He went on a bus tour of Pennsylvania on Wednesday. And he attended video call with Muslim voters Wednesday night — an opportunity to strengthen ties with a constituency angry about the Biden-Harris administration’s stance on the war in Gaza.
Harris campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said in a statement: “This is our mission for the final stretch of the campaign [Harris’] The vision of winning is reaching the undecided voters who will decide this election in places and ways that will actually reach them. It may look different than previous campaigns in today’s evolving media environment, but combined with campaign events, aggressive organizing and a historic paid media campaign, it’s a winning approach.”
Harris’ guarded public posture may be anything but President Joe Biden’s aborted campaign. Worried about the possibility of bluffing, the 81-year-old Biden’s campaign has been carefully managed and limited public appearances. Many of the people running Biden’s campaign are trying to pick Harris.
The campaign has repeatedly demonstrated a deep distrust of the media and concerns that news outlets can seize on any missteps that result from impromptu criticism.
“They’re very cautious,” one person involved in Harris’ race said of his campaign. “Sometimes it seems that they cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. I know Harris is ready to do whatever they ask of him. The campaign controls all of this. He’s got a ‘pick me up and let me go’ mindset – he’s willing to do whatever it takes.
Harris, younger and more telegenic than Biden, doesn’t need to be hunted, some analysts say. First, many undecided voters still aren’t sure where he stands on the issues. They need to hear from him and convince him that he is Sarah Longwell, host of The Focus Group podcast, and not a “San Francisco progressive” trying to make himself palatable to a wider electorate.
But Harris also benefits from something any candidate would envy: Longwell said the more people see him, the more they like him. Indeed, Harris’s favorability rating jumped 16 p.minterest etcointments NBC News polling from July to September showed the network’s biggest increase in polls for any politician since President George W. Bush’s numbers surged after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Still, his 5-point lead over Trump among registered voters was within the poll’s margin of error.
“He’s had these big looks that have gone over very well in many cases,” said Longwell, who heads the group Republican Voters Against Trump. “And sometimes there’s an impulse to say, ‘We just crushed it.’ Let’s not spoil everyone’s story about us crushing the debate.’ But this is not the world anymore. You have to keep pushing. You have to have media cycle after media cycle after media cycle. You must be in constant crime. It’s something Republicans understand, but Democrats struggle with.”
A simple argument is that Trump is always in the spotlight while Harris is in hiding. Trump declined to be interviewed for a 60 Minutes special and, unlike Harris, declined to participate in any more debates. In both cases, he chose to give up millions of television viewers.
As for Harris, he recently appeared on the podcast “All Fog,” hosted by two former NBA basketball players, Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. He seemed relaxed and chatty, talking about cooking, parenting and race — while also saying he supports the legalization of recreational marijuana, or “weed,” as he calls it.
With two friendly hosts, the popular podcast offered him a vehicle to reach the Black male electorate in particular.
Harris’ campaign also pitched to voters in non-traditional forums such as the gaming website IGN.
Trump is more in-your-face than he was in his early days as a candidate. Whether he likes it or not, he tends to make headlines lawsuit by special counsel Jack Smith it revealed his alleged role in trying to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.
Since February, she has given 175 interviews on nearly every platform, including keynote speeches and podcasts that have a large audience of far-right male listeners.
It was part of a campaign strategy to court young, male voters who have historically been disengaged from politics. Advisers told NBC News that the campaign saw them as an untapped bloc of voters, and as a result, spent a lot of time listening to podcasts.
Michael LaRosa, former press secretary to first lady Jill Biden, said: “Trump and [running mate JD] Vance gives voters accessibility. They are seen and heard because they are accessible. They are willing to sit down and answer anyone’s questions. And you have to respect that.
“The duck-and-duck approach does not exude strength and confidence,” he said.