Vice President Kamala Harris is investing heavily in her introduction to the country as critics say she’s dodging releasing her policy blueprint.
After booking $50 million worth of ads last month, the vice president is launching a $90 million bid over the next three weeks, according to a report from the Associated Press.
The advertising push, her largest yet, will share Harris’s personal story with voters, with a special focus on seven swing states. Voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin will hear attacks on former President Donald Trump’s “dangerous, extreme agenda” as Harris touts her tenure as California attorney general.
Harris’s presidential campaign got off to a late start after she stepped into President Joe Biden’s shoes with just over 100 days to go until Election Day. The day after Biden’s historic campaign exit, Harris announced her intention to head the top of the Democratic ticket, leaving her only a narrow window of time to tell voters why she should lead the nation.
Although the Democratic presidential nominee has stayed busy stumping in swing states, making her latest battleground tour across Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada last week, Harris has declined to make traditional media appearances to make her name and policy agenda known to voters. After facing criticism for not engaging with the press, Harris recently promised to sit down for an interview before the end of August.
However, she continues to face pushback on her lack of interaction with the media.
“Would it kill you guys to have a press conference? Why hasn’t she had a press conference?” CNN host Jim Acosta questioned Harris communications director Michael Tyler on Wednesday.
Tyler deflected with a laugh, reminding Acosta that Harris agreed to do an interview before the end of the month and is speaking directly to voters in rallies across the country.
“A campaign rally is not a press conference,” Acosta responded. “One interview before the end of the month, I mean, that’s not a lot.”
The CNN host continued to push the Harris campaign to hold a press conference before August’s end, but Tyler deferred on the timing. “We will commit to directly engaging with the voters who are going to decide this election,” he told the network.
Even during the flurry of rallies and events she has held in recent weeks, the vice president has given little insight into specifics of what a Harris presidency would entail. While she is set to unveil her economic blueprint in North Carolina on Friday, Harris’s campaign website has yet to create an issue page.
The Washington Post’s editorial board worried on Sunday that “if she hopes to prevail, Ms. Harris needs to present her ideas.”
On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Trump is using Harris’s relatively vague stance on policy as a campaign talking point. The former president has claimed that Harris is afraid to discuss her record and is deliberately leaving voters in the dark about her policy agenda.
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The Harris camp argues that the vice president’s positions will mirror her boss’s agenda.
“I don’t think we should overstate the mystery here — she’s been part of these policy proposals for the last four years,” Michael Linden, a former staff member in the White House budget office under Biden, told the New York Times.
