[Baltimore Sun] Kamala Harris goes on podcasts, talk shows in media blitz in final Election Day sprint
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Vice President Kamala Harris is in the middle of a lengthy list of interviews and media appearances this week as the campaign enters its closing stretch with less than one month until Election Day.
The race is essentially a coin toss in the seven swing states that will decide the election with a continually dwindling number of undecided voters that will ultimately determine who wins the White House, ramping up the pressure to meet people where they are.
Both campaigns have been making repeated appearances in places like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and other swing states.
The Democratic ticket is ramping up its media presence with a series of appearances on mostly friendly and niche programs as it tries to ramp up enthusiasm among its voters and get them to go out and cast a ballot. It comes as voters across the country are starting to get their mail-in ballots, meaning the election is officially underway with votes being cast.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, is interviewed in Philadelphia on Sept. 17. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times)
The Trump campaign has often criticized Harris for not sitting down for interviews often enough, accusing her of hiding from being confronted about her policies. Harris and Walz have limited their appearances on news programs and in other major outlets since taking over the Democratic ticket following President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race in a continuation of a larger pattern of voters getting their information outside of traditional sources.
The trend of mostly avoiding media appearances has reversed some this week as Harris and running mate Tim Walz are both making a handful of appearances on television shows, radio programs and podcasts. The vice president’s campaign said she will be on ABC’s “The View” on Tuesday, Howard Stern’s radio show and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” She also appeared on an episode of popular podcast “Call Her Daddy” that was released Sunday night and centered on reproductive rights and abortion access.
“She’s going to come across great in these in these niche appearances, not only because they’re relatively friendly outlets, but because she can be herself and answer questions that she wants to answer. The persuasion campaign that she’s running is perfect for this approach, and the mobilization campaign that Trump is running is very well-suited for the media that he enjoys,” said Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University.
Both campaigns have strayed away from high-risk interviews with reporters and journalists who are more likely to take an aggressive line of questioning and present them with landmines to overcome and risk stumbling over certain subjects.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, right, endorses Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Some of the venues Harris will appear on fit the mold of being outside the traditional scope of media and many of them have a friendly host who has voiced support for her or Biden’s campaign. It is an avenue Trump has also taken, as he has done interviews with a video game streamer, on Elon Musk’s social media platform X and with several popular podcasts, all of which had a receptive interviewer asking questions.
Along with bringing a friendlier environment for them to appear in, the appearances on niche programs also offer a different audience than the one tuning in for nightly news programs or reading a legacy brand.
“She is running a media campaign for the current, very fragmented media landscape that we have,” Dagnes said. “She and Trump — they are running a very new kind of media campaign where he’s reaching out on podcasts, to try and reach younger voters and she’s doing the same thing, trying to reach people where people are in these very small bubbles of ideology, demographics and interests.”
But legacy media is also getting some interaction with the campaigns, particularly from the vice presidential nominees, who have made recent appearances on Sunday news shows.
Harris and Walz also sat for an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” which will air its election special featuring the Democratic ticket on Monday night. The network said it also invited the former president to participate but announced that he had backed out hours before last week’s vice-presidential debate.
“After initially accepting 60 Minutes’ request for an interview with Scott Pelley, former President Trump’s campaign has decided not to participate,” CBS said.
Trump’s campaign has denied that it backed out of sitting for the interview.
“Fake News. 60 Minutes begged for an interview, even after they were caught lying about Hunter Biden’s laptop back in 2020. There were initial discussions, but nothing was ever scheduled or locked in,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “They also insisted on doing live fact-checking, which is unprecedented.”
Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.
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