Haunted by 2016, Democrats fear Kamala Harris is playing it too safe

Democratic operatives, including some of Kamala Harris' own staffers, are growing increasingly concerned about her relatively light campaign schedule, which has her holding fewer events than Donald Trump and avoiding unscripted interactions with voters and the press almost entirely.

In interviews with POLITICO, nearly two dozen Democrats described Harris as running a do-no-harm, risk-averse approach to the race they fear could hamper her as the campaign enters its final 30-day stretch.

With early voting by mail and in person already underway in more than half of the country, Harris spent just three days of the last week of September in battleground states. On Sept. 28, when Trump gave a speech in Wisconsin before flying to Alabama for the Georgia-Alabama football game, Harris was attending a fundraiser in San Francisco. And beyond concerns about her schedule, Democrats argue that Harris would benefit from venues that allow her to introduce herself to voters in a more authentic way, such as town hall events, more sit-down interviews and unscripted exchanges with voters.

"There's a time at which you just have to barnstorm these battlegrounds," said David Axelrod, the longtime Democratic operative who helped lead Barack Obama's presidential campaigns and was an early critic of President Joe Biden's campaigning style. "These races are decathlons, and there are a lot of events, and you have to do all of them because people want to test you."

"It's the most difficult oral exam on the plan for the most difficult job, and part of that is just that spontaneous — town halls, all kinds of interviews, and not just friendly interviews. OTRs where you interact in a substantive way with people, all of those things are valuable," he continued. "And I would be doing them if I were her."

The discussions inside the party speak to the growing anxiety about the state of the race, as polls show Harris and Trump locked in a dead heat across all seven battleground states — and with Democrats haunted by the echoes of Hillary Clinton's play-it-safe 2016 campaign.

"We know this isn't actually 2016 again, and it's not like she's not going to Wisconsin," said a former Biden staffer, referring to Clinton's infamous decision to never travel to the state that she eventually lost. "But we can still learn from that. Trump is everywhere again, just like he was then. Our side needs to be, too."

Democrats acknowledged Harris is performing better than Biden and the excitement surrounding her candidacy has increased the party's cash advantage. She's also put the Sun Belt swing states back in play. But they're also growing more distressed that a campaign insisting Harris is the "underdog" is running like she's protecting a lead.

While the plan is for Harris' travel to ramp up in October, the vice president has spent more than a third of days since the Democratic National Convention receiving briefings from staff and conducting internal meetings, or without any scheduled public events, according to a POLITICO review of her travel. That excludes days with known official side business, like her late September meeting with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the president of the United Arab Emirates, at the White House, last week's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and briefings she received at FEMA's headquarters in Washington earlier this week.

Of the remaining days, the vice president spent just a little more than half of them holding rallies, policy-focused speeches, events with labor unions and other in-person, public-facing events, including stops at small businesses, in swing states. And she has spent nearly half of her post-DNC days in Washington.

Comparing Harris' campaign to other recent Democratic presidential nominees is difficult, as Biden's 2020 campaign was affected by the restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic. But an analysis of Barack Obama's first campaign in 2008 and Clinton's 2016 bid — based on data from Eric Appleman's Democracy in Action sites — shows that Harris' schedule more closely reflects the latter than the former.

Looking at the same time period in those two elections, Obama had just two days with no public events, and his schedule was packed daily with an array of campaign events, brief appearances at local restaurants, fundraisers, and other events. Clinton, by contrast, had roughly the same number of days with no events that Harris has had, including a brief stint where she was treated for pneumonia.

"More is always helpful, always better because they just dominate the news cycle for a few days," said Morgan Jackson, a North Carolina-based Democratic strategist. "Listen, when these late-breakers are deciding how they're going to vote, the ones that are really consequential in a tight race — a trip in October is infinitely worth more than one in September because of those late-deciders."

The angst among Harris' allies acknowledges the challenges facing her team as they make decisions about the most effective use of the vice president's time. She spent several days in early September prepping for her debate against Trump — a successful performance that gave her campaign new momentum. And some of the official-side events, which can have the benefit of burnishing her presidential bonafides, come at the cost of pulling her off the trail.

"We're in the game, and we're competitive because Joe Biden stepped down and Kamala Harris filled the void. And she met the moment," said one Democratic operative granted anonymity to speak candidly about the campaign. "This is still the Biden campaign infrastructure. That was anemic," they continued. "Making a decision takes forever."

Her campaign is trying to make its presence felt even when she isn't there. The campaign trolled Trump while he attended the Georgia-Alabama game that night, running an ad during the national TV broadcast focusing on the GOP nominee's refusal to commit to a second debate. A second debate, the vice president's top aides believe, would provide another opportunity to mitigate what may be her biggest political liability: that much of the electorate still doesn't know much about her.

The campaign's awareness that voters still need to see more of Harris makes the vice president's recent schedule all the more perplexing.

Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, who was one of the first Democrats to call for Biden to step aside, warned that the race remains "frighteningly close," even with a new candidate. Moulton, who campaigned for the vice president in North Carolina this week, said Harris needs to be on the ground with voters, offering more specifics about her policy plans — and how they differ from the president's — on the economy and immigration if she wants to win over key voting blocs.

"This was a complaint about the Biden campaign," Moulton said, when asked if he was concerned about Harris' schedule. "So it's not a new thing that we need to get out there as Democrats and meet more Americans on the ground."

Of the days left, Democrats had clear advice for where Harris should spend her time. "Do not go to Georgia one more time," one Democratic operative said. "You gotta get to Michigan. You need to live in Pennsylvania [because] the challenge is still Black voters in Philadelphia, Black voters in Detroit."

Harris aides are planning an aggressive final stretch, with increased travel and a packed media schedule over the next 30 days — and they understand the magnitude of the work ahead. The campaign appears to be adjusting its approach to deploying Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as well. After his debate on Tuesday that showed him nervous out of the gate, Walz is swinging across the country and plans to participate in more media interviews, both with national and battleground state outlets, as well as outreach to specialty audiences with sports content creators and podcasts.

Aides maintain Harris has a busy travel schedule, with a number of her rallies generating a deluge of earned media. Last week, she delivered an economics speech in eastern Pennsylvania, gave remarks after a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border, attended fundraisers over the weekend and finished it out with a Las Vegas rally. But as Hurricane Helene devastated parts of the South, Harris had to leave Nevada early to return to Washington to attend briefings, though she still joined the "All the Smoke" podcast. She visited Georgia to survey hurricane damage on Wednesday, and campaigned in Wisconsin and Michigan this week. She'll return to Nevada next Thursday for a Univision town hall.

And aides note that Harris does interact with the media, participating in 95 interviews this year, according to the campaign. On most trips Harris takes, she often visits with the press pool seated at the back of her plane, but speaking only off the record. The vice president has prioritized podcasts with content creators and focused on Black and Latino media, even as she does some traditional press. In addition to participating in two local interviews on Tuesday, Harris joined Alex Cooper on "Call Her Daddy" — a popular podcast that has millions of listeners, mostly women — for a conversation on abortion rights that will air next week.

Harris aides say that this strategy is a response to a fragmented media market, as well as an effort to reach voters across a number of channels. In addition to aggressive outreach on the ground, the campaign uses platforms like Tiktok, where campaign videos have generated more than a billion views, and where content creators have used their platforms to share her message. The campaign has also invested heavily in paid media, directed toward digital and other platforms for voters who don't consume news media — like Hispanic radio, Twitch, its recent health care ad blitz and TV buys designed to capture specific audiences, including the NFL, College Football, MLB World Series, reality television, the American Music Awards.

"It's not just about packing her schedule with public events — it's about making efficient use of every second to make sure undecided voters see her being able to lead, meeting voters where they are across media, and fundraising strategically," said Jim Messina, who ran Obama's 2012 reelection campaign. "She's using smart, modern strategies — like making sure she's talking to media to have maximum impact with key demographics, investing heavily in diversified paid media, and organizing — to make sure voters know enough about her to feel confident she's ready to be president."

Harris campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said the campaign is bringing "voters from across the political spectrum that want to turn the page on Trump's chaos and division," while electing a leader focusing on uniting the country and strengthening the middle class.

"Our task for the final stretch of this campaign is ensuring that winning vision reaches the undecided voters who will decide this election in places and ways that will actually reach them," he said. "That may look different in today's evolving media environment than prior campaigns, but coupled with campaign events, aggressive organizing, and a historic paid media campaign, it's a winning approach."

Of the fundraisers, in particular, some Democrats argued they were necessary for the campaign to send Harris out for high-dollar events because they were still recovering from Biden's anemic fundraising, "which hurt Democratic fundraising all cycle," said a battleground state strategist.

"Frankly, none of the people she needs to reach right now are necessarily going to get it from her going to some retail, small-business stop," the strategist continued. "Instead, she's communicating [with paid ads] in a way that Trump and his allies are not matching."

Harris had blockbuster success — and drew fawning media coverage — when she held a series of large rallies during her first weeks at the top of the ticket, but the pace of those big events has also slowed. And much was made about how long it took Harris to finally do her first sitdown interview after her rapid ascension to the top of the ticket.

While she has begun to do more interviews — and has a major one scheduled with "60 Minutes" in the coming days — Democrats still feel like she could further increase her visibility. That also applied for Walz, who in part won the running mate slot because of his strength doing high-profile interviews — but he has largely stopped doing them since joining a campaign run by a team determined to minimize risk.

Some Democrats felt that Walz's rustiness showed in Tuesday's debate, though the Minnesota governor has been open about being a weak debater. While he rallied as the night went on, he started off nervous and halting and compared poorly to the smooth delivery of Vance, who routinely takes questions from reporters and had sharpened his responses.

"Walz is good at this but, like anyone, he needs practice," said one Democrat who is helping run a battleground state congressional race. "Let him be charming, let him be 'Coach,' let him remind voters why she picked him in the first place."