Democrats Nervous About Kamala Harris’s Media Strategy: Hiding

Democrats are uncomfortable with the Harris campaign’s decision to limit media access to Vice President Kamala Harris.

With fewer than 50 days to Election Day, Harris has only sat for four interviews, leaving voters in the lurch about many of her policy prescriptions for the failures of the Biden-Harris administration. When she sits for a rare interview, she often uses scripted lines or repeats similar talking points to questions she has not directly answered.

A near-majority (48 percent) of Americans believe Harris just says what she thinks people want to hear, an Economist/YouGov poll found Wednesday, while only 36 percent say Harris says what she believes.

Harris “is not as well-known as Biden,” Democrat strategist Brad Bannon told the Hill. “She needs to flesh out her profile.”

“They need to find a way of putting her out there in big ways and not just on CNN, where most of those viewers are already committed to her,” another Democrat strategist said. “And they have to keep doing media consistently, in ways big and small, throughout the final weeks. She can’t just do rallies or scripted in-person appearances.”

The campaign’s strategy is frustrating her allies in the press. The Harris-Walz ticket is on pace to do the fewest interviews and press conferences in modern U.S. campaign history, Axios reported Thursday. “Every big news network has a standing request with the Harris campaign for an interview,” according to the New York Times.

Some Democrats in the media believe, without evidence, that the more voters see Harris, the more voters like her. “The polls show the more you see Kamala, the more you like Kamala,” CNN commentator Van Jones said Tuesday. “More. More. More.”

Jones’ speculation appears unfounded and even contradicted by polling, perhaps suggesting that the Harris campaign’s media strategy is correct.

Harris’s favorability numbers have sunk since August, while former President Donald Trump’s have risen, Gallup polling found:

• Trump’s favorability is up five points since August: 46 percent (+5), Unfavorable: 53 percent (-2).
• Harris’s favorability is down three points since August: 44 percent (-3), Unfavorable: 54 percent (+5).

Another reason the campaign might be hiding Harris could be due to the positive coverage she receives without risking media appearances in which she is either forced to undermine her record in the Biden-Harris administration or appear as an incumbent, no-change candidate.

Television networks have provided Harris with 84 percent “positive coverage” since she joined the presidential race, a Media Research Center study found, while they have produced 89 percent negative coverage of Trump.

Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.