These were the types of questions commonly asked to new applicants. But Harris got that information less than two weeks before the Nov. 5 election and after millions of people had already voted. Her response perhaps highlighted a crucial challenge for the White House campaign.
“How much time do we have?” Harris sarcastically said.
Actually, not much.
Any candidate’s most valuable resource is time, and Harris has been historically constrained from the start. The Democratic nominee enters the race just three months after Democratic President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, and Harris faces voters who say they still want to know more about who she is and how she will govern.
Her public events tend to be oriented towards large rallies where crowds go wild, and Harris delivers variations on her standard stump speech. But in the past week or so, she’s added events like more intimate settings where conversations can be more revealing, low-key church services and black box theater sit-downs. “I lived a full life,” Harris told the Michigan audience. “I am a wife, mother, sister and godmother. I love to cook.” Harris, 60, is a relative newcomer to the national political scene.
As she often reminds voters, most of her career was spent as a prosecutor and state attorney general in California, outside Washington. He then served in the Senate for four years and was unsuccessful in the 2020 White House race. Her time as vice president has raised her profile, but it is nothing like what a traditional candidate might have at this stage of the race.
“Comparatively, Harris is still a relative unknown as a candidate,” said Kevin Madden, a political strategist who worked on three presidential campaigns. “It takes years to build a national presence that can withstand the brutality of a presidential campaign.”
Biden ran for office several times before winning the nomination and has 30 years of public service on his resume, including eight years as vice president. Democrat Barack Obama began building his profile during John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign and the 2006 midterm elections, beginning his two-year bid for his first term in the White House. On the Republican side, the Bush family brand was built over two decades and multiple presidential campaigns.
“Building and executing Harris’s signature presidential campaign over 108 days was always going to be a significant and significant challenge,” Madden said.
Meanwhile, Republican Donald Trump is a known number. He had near-universal recognition even before the 2016 campaign, thanks to his appearances on reality TV. He has essentially been campaigning since he lost the 2020 election to Biden. To this day he refuses to acknowledge this fact.
For Harris and her aides, the shortened campaign offered both advantages and challenges. But since there is no way to change the reality of the political calendar, they can only try to make the best of it.
It requires an endless series of difficult choices: where to go, what to talk about, who to talk to. These challenges are concentrated in the final weeks of every campaign, but for Harris, this was a key feature of the sprint.
Aides structured the campaign into several phases.
On opening day, Harris prioritized blocking the nomination and blocking would-be challengers. She then tried to introduce herself to the public in her own way. That meant talking about not only her biography but also her governing philosophy, especially on economic issues, because potential voters complained they didn’t know what she was about.
Along the way, she returned to Washington for work related to her office, working to demonstrate the government’s capabilities in responding to natural disasters and demonstrating national security credentials in its approach to wars abroad.
“The disconnected nature of the race makes the hill a little steeper for her to climb, but that’s why she’s doing everything she can,” said Eric Schultz, who served as deputy White House press secretary during the Obama administration.
In recent weeks, Harris has spoken more candidly about the summer Sunday when Biden dropped out of the race and handed her the keys to his campaign. She sought to use the profound political moment as an opportunity to connect with voters, giving them a new perspective on her faith.
“That Sunday when the president called me was a special day and I instinctively understood the seriousness and seriousness of the moment,” she said during a CNN town hall.
So she said she called her pastor. “I needed that spiritual connection, I needed that advice, I needed that prayer.” She added that she prays every day.
The event, held in suburban Detroit, was one of three held in the crucial Midwestern state last week in which Harris, along with Liz Cheney, a prominent Republican critic of Trump who backed the Democrat, answered questions from the moderator and an audience of undecided voters. I did it. It was a different version of the vice president than was seen at her rallies, more relaxed and chatty.
Rita Peterson, 48, said she was impressed by Harris’ ability to connect.
“I think when you come from a place that you enjoy, a place that you want to work with and move forward with, there are a lot of people who want to be a part of that and want to move forward with you.” she said
The conversation with Cheney comes amid concerns about Trump’s election as president for a second time, especially after Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the 2020 vote and the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the day his election took place. It was meant to attract Republican voters. Supporters beat and bloodied law enforcement to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory.
As the campaign draws to a close, Harris is focusing on drawing contrasts with Trump. She is scheduled to return to the location near the White House where Trump helped incite the mob on January 6. This is where voters hope to embody the battle between protecting democracy and sowing political chaos.
She plans to speak at the Ellipse on Tuesday, a week before Election Day, urging the nation to “turn the page.”
