The Harris-Walz campaign’s strategy for the final week of the election is becoming crystal clear: sidelining Kamala Harris. After aggressively hitting the trail for weeks and doing a whole bunch of interviews, it’s clear that she is no longer the star of her own campaign. In fact, it’s questionable whether she ever was.
Just look at the past week. On Tuesday, Harris wasn’t campaigning at all; instead, she was holed up in D.C. preparing for two interviews. Why did she pause her campaign just to prepare for interviews? After three months on the trail, she should be more than ready. And on Wednesday, once again, she was missing from the campaign trail again to prep for her CNN town hall, which was devastatingly awful.
Even CNN pundits were panning her performance.
NEW: CNN’s Scott Jennings says Kamala Harris is a “double-threat” because she can’t think on her feet and can’t answer the expected questions.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 24, 2024
CNN has railed on Harris after her town hall event.
Here are the top reactions:
6. Axelrod: She is word salad city.
5. Jennings:… pic.twitter.com/Mdrr46uzbz
Kamala is her own worst advocate, and everyone seems to know that. She doesn’t have a command of the issues and sounds more like someone who is repeatedly rehearsing lines rather than someone who understands the complexities of what matters to Americans.
Recommended: Kamala’s CNN Town Hall Was a Masterclass in Political Self-Destruction
In light of her latest train wreck of an interview, it should come as no surprise that it was announced that Beyoncé will be performing at her rally in Houston on Friday night.
You heard that right: Houston. The Washington Post had the scoop.
Queen Bey is taking sides.
The recording artist Beyoncé has agreed to appear Friday at a Houston rally for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, along with her mother, Tina Knowles, and country music icon Willie Nelson, according to people familiar with the planning who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview an appearance that hasn’t been publicly announced.
The appearance ends months of suspense over whether Beyoncé would work to support the vice president. She has long been seen as one of the most impactful potential surrogates for Harris, along with pop star Taylor Swift, who endorsed Harris in September but has not appeared on her behalf.
Harris is not going to win Texas. She’s not there for her campaign, she’s there to help boost the Senate campaign of Rep. Colin Allred, who is also not going to win his bid to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz.
Kamala isn’t just wasting time in a red state; she has Beyoncé headlining the event to help boost attendance. I can still remember when the DNC floated rumors about Beyoncé performing on the final night of the convention in order to boost ratings.
After being off the campaign trail for two days, Kamala should be barnstorming the battleground states, not wasting the last days of the campaign in Texas.
Meanwhile, Mark Cuban, Bruce Springsteen, and Eminem are also out there on the campaign trail for her. At a recent Detroit rally, Harris spoke for less than seven minutes, as the real star of the rally was Lizzo — as well as some weird white dude for Harris.
It's a really bad look when you are not the star of your own campaign. And given her light campaign schedule, it's obvious that Kamala's campaign is trying to deemphasize its actual candidate and rely on celebrities to close the deal.
On one hand, it makes sense. If you watched Kamala's CNN town hall, it's obvious she's terrible at making the case to vote for her. But this feels like 2020 when the Biden campaign hid Joe Biden away by locking him up in his basement. Today, the Harris-Walz campaign appears to be hiding its candidate, relying on celebrities to draw crowds and Harris limiting herself to select interviews she spends all day preparing for.
Her own campaign is sidelining her.
