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Radio host Charlamagne Tha God began his Tuesday interview with Kamala Harris by describing a common complaint about her: She comes off “as very scripted” and focused on “talking points.”
The vice president quipped that another word for her style might be “disciplined.” And after Donald Trump’s manic week, featuring a dance session and repeated public tangents, she had a curt reply to her critics: “you’re welcome.’”
The moment encapsulated what many Democrats see as an acute challenge for Harris, one that’s reminiscent in some ways of the party’s 2016 loss to Trump. They see her fighting a losing battle for public attention against an opponent whose often inflammatory rhetoric cuts through the news cycle more easily than her messaging.
Interviews with more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers, aides and strategists about Harris’ campaign revealed some worries, as well as plenty of encouragement for the nominee to stray from her so-far careful approach. Harris has let Trump be himself, even as he captures more headlines than her, and sought to make the election a referendum on him — even though he’s been out of power.
“The more people see Trump, the more they hate him,” Democratic strategist Caitlin Legacki told Semafor. “So letting him decompensate on national TV while she goes and makes a positive case for herself to persuadable voters is a great strategy.”
Other Democrats are less convinced that Harris’ lower-key mentality will break through with undecided voters, particularly those to whom she’s still introducing herself after her late entry into the race.
“We’re still talking about Barack Obama, and that was four days ago,” one Democratic strategist said of the former president’s headline-grabbing suggestion that Black men might be reluctant to vote for a woman. Harris is “losing the internet cycle,” this strategist said.
Things looked much different back in July, when Harris’ sudden ascension to replace President Joe Biden atop the ticket seemed to awaken new Generation Z support. But the early rush of online memes about coconut trees and Harris being “brat” gave way to a more traditional campaign plan. And Harris’ public exposure became more measured.
She sat for her first solo interviews more than two weeks after accepting the nomination, after delivering what most considered a clear debate victory over Trump and rolling out a multi-part economic platform. This week she trained her focus on Black men as a voting bloc that Harris cannot afford to let drift one iota toward Trump.
The strategy has some side benefits.
“I don’t think she has taken very many stumbles,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., told Semafor.
But it’s also left her, besides her buzzy acknowledgment to owning a “Glock,” with fewer clear viral moments to cut through the noise Trump inevitably generates. (This week alone, he has falsely declared that his party is more supportive of in vitro fertilization than Democrats and publicly sparred with an interviewer who questioned his tariff plans.)
The Harris campaign sees Trump’s attention-grabbing headlines as bound to repel swing voters, an aide told Semafor. The more static Trump generates, the aide explained, the clearer a distinction her campaign hopes to create between the candidates in the eyes of suburban moderates and disaffected Republicans who might stray from him.
Harris will tape a Fox News town hall on Wednesday night that holds the promise of putting her in front of a more skeptical audience. Tim Walz, her running mate, has appeared on Fox News himself for two straight weekends.
For Democrats who want to see her take more chances, that’s a good thing.
“The best hope she has of breaking through is through controversial interviews that will get outsized secondary attention,” Alyssa Cass, chief strategist of the Democratic group Blueprint, said in an interview. “And the message she needs to project to them is strength and fearlessness.”
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Since before the Trump era, Democrats have tended to wring their hands as elections approach. These Democrats are colorfully called “bedwetters” by their peers. This year is no different: Angst around Harris’ campaign began flaring last week as polls started to show an unyieldingly tight Electoral College race.
Democrats who spoke to Semafor acknowledged their share of polling nervousness following a failure to deliver at the ballot box after strong Democratic polling advantages in both 2016 and 2020.
“Given the utter abhorrence of Donald Trump, this race feels closer than it should be,” one Democratic lawmaker told Semafor.
A Democratic aide lamented that “the polling is very concerning, but I’ll be honest — since 2016, it’s so hard for me to know what’s even semi-reliable anymore.”
Still, Democrats insist that Harris has more room to grow with the narrow sliver of remaining undecided voters.
Rep. Nanette Barragan, D-Calif., tried to redirect her nail-biting colleagues: “At this late stage, I am focused on my actions. Not polls.”
Democrats also want the vice president to sharpen her rhetorical attacks in the mold of her agreement with Charlamagne that Trump is a “fascist.” She’s already started more openly warning that a second Trump term would hurt the US.
Kadia’s view
It’s hard to hold people’s attention when you’re running against Trump, who inexplicably danced for 39 minutes at a town hall and has planned unorthodox campaign appearances from Coachella to Madison Square Garden.
So it’s arguably unfair to expect Harris to compete with her opponent’s carnival-barker-esque mentality. And her human moments with “Call Her Daddy” podcaster Alex Cooper show that Harris has gotten more comfortable revealing her authentic self.
But her decision to not focus on running as a woman did more than depart from Hillary Clinton — it opened space in her campaign that she has only partly filled by telling voters more about who she is. Harris has talked more about being Black, and undeniably benefited from Trump’s attempt to question her race, yet she still has work to do with Black men.
Notable
- Harris’ Pennsylvania operation is already plagued by finger-pointing about its effectiveness in a critical swing state, Politico reports.
- Inside Harris’ camp, there’s a sense of being “stuck in the mud” as none of her paths to 270 electoral votes feels solid, according to CNN.