You don’t have to be a political genius to understand that Kamala Harris’s campaign is in trouble, and it knows that. Now, I’m not going to tell you that I’ve seen Kamala’s internal polling. I haven’t. But what I can tell you is that we can see quite clearly that her campaign is reacting to what their internal polling is telling them. And it’s not good for her.
After spending weeks hiding from the media, Harris suddenly switched gears and did interviews. That was the first sign that the campaign was seeing trouble behind the scenes. Voters weren’t going to vote solely on vibes and scripted campaign events. They wanted to see more of Kamala. They wanted substance. Internal polling showed that the old strategy wasn’t working, so over the past month, the campaign shifted gears more than once.
On Friday, the Trump campaign posted a chart comparing the media appearances between Trump and Kamala since becoming their parties' nominees.
“President Trump is ducking interviews. He’s too weak and unstable. Why are they trying to hide him away?” 🤪🤪🤪 pic.twitter.com/z3bjyPeGe3
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 18, 2024
As the graph shows, Kamala spent weeks avoiding interviews and then slowly eased into them. She still lags far behind Trump, but that’s hardly a shock. Even if you align them by nomination dates, she’s doing interviews at a much slower pace.
You don’t change strategies if what you’re doing is working. As the above graph shows, Kamala kicked up the pace with the interviews as the weeks passed in a desperate attempt to reach independent voters and fans of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast.
But her strategy changed again when she started doing more “tough” interviews. When going on friendly networks like CNN, MSNBC, or friendly venues like “The View,” with friendly interviewers like Howard Stern and Stephen Colbert didn’t do the trick, she clearly thought an interview on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” would prove to be the “serious” interview she needed to have to prove herself.
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And then we found out that CBS edited her responses in a futile attempt to make her sound smarter, which backfired. All of this was happening as public polls were showing what Kamala’s internals were likely showing her for weeks: that Trump was ahead.
The interviews, far from helping her, seemed to underscore the problems that have plagued her campaign — a lack of authenticity and an inability to connect with voters on a personal level. She wasn’t closing the sale.
And then we saw an incredible shift in tone from Kamala. Suddenly, the joy and good vibes that defined her campaign took a backseat to fear and anger.
But the real Hail Mary was when Kamala agreed to sit down with Fox News’ Bret Baier on “Special Report.” Remember, Kamala refused to debate Trump on Fox News earlier this month; now, she was suddenly willing to go one-on-one with Bret Baier?
Again, you don’t do this unless you’re seriously trying to do anything to shift the race. Democrats avoid Fox News like the plague, and Kamala, who has spent the past month or so doing exclusively friendly interviews with people who want to see her win, was unprepared to handle an interviewer who actually expected her to answer questions.
The reality is that the Harris campaign is in trouble, and it knows that. These recent shifts in strategy are a reaction to something, and the most logical explanation is that her internal numbers are bad enough to warrant multiple course correction attempts. Now, this is by no means an excuse to let your guard down or become complacent. Assume that Trump is a few points behind and do what you can to help him over the finish line. But the Harris-Walz campaign knows it's in trouble.
