Vice President Harris is taking a considerably different approach than fellow Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton within the last stretch of the presidential marketing campaign.
Harris hasn’t leaned into shattering the glass ceiling or making historical past the best way Clinton did, despite the fact that she’d be the primary girl elected to the nation’s highest workplace.
She’s additionally hyperfocused on the Midwest, together with Wisconsin, a state Clinton regretted not visiting within the last days of the marketing campaign. Clinton ended up shedding the Badger State in addition to Michigan and Pennsylvania, beautiful Democrats on the time.
In one other distinction, Harris has used an promoting technique centered round optimistic or distinction advertisements, as an alternative of simply detrimental advertisements attacking former President Trump, as Clinton employed within the final few weeks of her marketing campaign.
That could also be partly to introduce herself to a bigger viewers, as Harris isn't almost as well-known to the general public as Clinton was when she ran for president in 2016. Harris, in contrast to Clinton, additionally has a shorter window to sway voters, having solely changed President Biden on the prime of the ticket in late July.
In some ways, if Harris is operating a very different marketing campaign than Clinton, it's largely as a result of she advantages from the hindsight of seeing how Clinton misplaced to the identical Republican who's now in search of to defeat her in November.
“Kamala saw what Hillary did, what Hillary went through, what slings and arrows came her way and she seems to be both ready for it and seemingly able to thread a needle in a way that has been very successful,” stated Tracy Sefl, the veteran Democratic marketing consultant who has served as an adviser to Clinton. “Is it fair to say that Hillary showed her the way? Yeah. Are there also a million differences? That is also true.”
Democrats who nonetheless have nightmares over 2016 have tried to rewrite the playbook on how you can beat Trump.
And after all, Trump in 2024 isn’t precisely the identical candidate as Trump in 2016.
“Vice President Harris has the advantage of dealing with a less focused Donald Trump,” stated Democratic strategist Joel Payne, who served as director of African American paid media and promoting throughout Clinton’s 2016 race. “He’s the default now. He was the disrupter then. That’s a significant difference.”
Democrats level to Harris’s latest go to to the border as proof that they’re in search of to go on offense even on points the place Republicans could have an edge. While Biden had gotten pummeled on the problem in recent times, Harris “took a chance” on highlighting the problem when she traveled to the southern border in Arizona.
“I think one of the biggest changes is how risk-averse we were,” one Democratic operative stated, referring to the Clinton marketing campaign. “We didn’t do anything to shake the apple cart. But I think this campaign feels good about doing those things, and that’s a huge difference.”
Plenty of political observers don’t agree with that evaluation and assume Harris is operating too secure a race.
These voices have complained that she isn't doing extra interviews with journalists who would ask her powerful questions.
That’s really a similarity with Clinton, who in 2016 largely averted sit-down interviews in the course of the marketing campaign.
Radio star Howard Stern wished to interview Clinton throughout her 2016 marketing campaign and argued in his ebook, “Howard Stern Comes Again,” that she may have received over the voters she wanted to win the election by showing on his present.
“So why didn’t she? I’ll inform you why. She was afraid. She received tight. She thought it was within the bag, and she or he thought ‘I could go talk to Howard and really screw things up,” Stern wrote in the book. “She thought it was a gamble. In my mind, the gamble was not coming on the show.”
Sefl and other former Clinton aides point out that Harris did sit down for an interview with two former NBA players for the podcast “All the Smoke,” where she talked about race, police brutality and even her husband Doug Emhoff and her stepchildren.
The campaign is hoping the podcast could help court men — and specifically Black men, a voting bloc that has been lukewarm toward her candidacy.
Democrats said they wanted to see Harris out there, no matter the platform.
“I don’t care if it’s a sports activities podcast or an influencer,” Sefl stated. “I just care that she’s out there having substantive conversations and continuing to make the contrast with Donald Trump.”
Since turning into the Democratic nominee following Biden’s withdrawal from the race, Harris has not highlighted her personal id, one thing Clinton doubled down on all through her marketing campaign, with indicators that learn ‘I’m with Her’ and speak of shattering the glass ceiling.
But even in bigger moments resembling her speech on the Democratic National Convention, the place Harris formally accepted her social gathering’s nomination, there was little point out of the second’s significance or what would possibly come subsequent.
During a photo-op in entrance of a “FEMA” signal this week on the heels of the destruction of Hurricane Helene, one former Clinton aide quipped that in 2016, they'd have photoshopped an “LE” on the finish of the signage.
One of the largest variations aides on each side level out is Harris’s approach to Trump.
On the airwaves, a lot of her approach has been to introduce herself to voters with optimistic advertisements about her skilled experiences, together with as a prosecutor. But she can also be operating a string of distinction advertisements the place she seeks to point out the distinction with Trump.
“As a prosecutor, I never asked a victim or a witness, ‘Are you a Republican or a Democrat?’ The only thing I ever asked them: ‘Are you OK?’ And that’s the kind of president we need right now,” Harris says in a single advert. “Someone who cares about you and is not putting themselves first.
“I intend to be a president for all Americans and focus on investing right now in you, the American people. And we can chart a new way forward,” Harris concludes.
Democratic strategist Steve Schale, the director of the tremendous PAC Unite the Country, which can also be operating optimistic and distinction spots, stated the distinction advertisements are a “smart place” for Harris to be with about a month remaining till Election Day.
“As long as they’re in a place where her favorables remain where they are, it’s a good spot to be,” Schale stated. “And I suspect they’re going to stay in this lane that they’re in.”
He pointed to the 2016 race when Clinton’s marketing campaign went detrimental within the last weeks of the race.
“Trump wins in a race where both candidates are looked at in an extremely negative way,” he stated.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This materials will not be revealed, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
