Vice President Kamala Harris’s quiet schedule on Tuesday raised concerns among political experts, who questioned her apparent lack of urgency with less than three weeks until Election Day.
Harris has repeatedly said she is running as an underdog, but her schedule does not appear to mirror those claims. Harris’s Tuesday schedule shows one event — she will sit for an interview with Charlamagne tha God at 5 p.m. Eastern.
Typically, candidates in the final stretch of a presidential campaign traverse battleground states, speaking with as many undecided voters as possible at town halls, local events, and campaign rallies.
Polling shows that Harris is losing support among men, black voters, and Hispanic voters, while former President Donald Trump is running ahead of his 2020 and 2016 performances. Swing state polling indicates Trump is either leading Harris or within the margin of error. Voter registrations and early voting also appear to benefit Trump in many states.
“Kamala needs all day to prep for Charlamagne?” pollster Patrick Ruffini questioned on X:
“Why isn’t she in three battleground states a day? Why isn’t she in four media markets in Pennsylvania today rather than one?” political analyst Mark Halperin said on The Morning Meeting. “If you assume she’s behind, which, again, I think she is right now, not by a lot. Why isn’t she working hard?”
Sean Spicer, a Republican political analyst who served in the Trump administration, questioned from a public relations standpoint why the Harris campaign is not even trying to create the perception of working hard.
“You create the impression that she’s busting her butt, and they’re not even trying on that front to create the perception that she’s hustling. And she goes out there the other day and says, ‘We’re the underdog. We’re behind.’ Okay, then show me you’re the underdog. Act like the underdog, but you don’t go, we’re the underdog,” he said.
Dan Turrentine, a former congressional Democrat staffer, said Harris’s slim schedule is contrasted by the perception of Trump as being the candidate who is campaigning the hardest, while Harris is still perceived as hiding from the media. “No one is going to sit there and say Harris is really open with the media and engaged in an open book, and Trump is the one hiding,” Turrentine explained on The Morning Meeting.
Harris’s strategy in the final month has been centered around national interviews with celebrity hosts who are often friendly with her. Last week, she sat for interviews with Call Her Daddy, The View, and CBS News’s 60 Minutes — interviews that created a stir but perhaps for the wrong reasons.
On Monday, the Harris campaign announced it will allow Harris to sit for a Wednesday interview on Fox News. Her scheduled appearance on Fox News reeks of desperation, critics say, as she appears to be limping into the final three weeks of the presidential campaign.
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.
