As the election draws close, Vice President Kamala Harris has made a change in her campaign strategy by appearing on a variety of media platforms, including participating in interviews with Fox News’ Bret Baier and “Call Her Daddy’s” Alex Cooper. Additionally, Harris has increased her appearances on more typical campaign trail outlets in the past few weeks, including going on “The Howard Stern Show,” “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” “The View” and “60 Minutes.”
Harris’ decision to ramp up her media appearances this close to the election is far from surprising. A large focus of the Vice President’s media blitz is due to her efforts to appeal to younger voters, specifically her appearing on Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy,” which is Spotify’s third-most listened to podcast.
It’s quite clear that Harris’ key target audience are Millenial and Gen Z voters, a bloc that has not shown up to the polls as much as older generations. In 2020, President Joe Biden outperformed former President Donald Trump at the polls by 20 points among Millennial and Gen Z voters.
What does appear to be a shift in tone for the Harris campaign are her recent appearances and comments on “The View” and Fox News. While being interviewed on “The View,” Harris was questioned on what she would do differently from Biden’s administration, saying she is “going to have a Republican in [her] cabinet.”
Harris’ appearance on Fox News is, in general, a rather moderate decision. Throughout the 2020 campaign, Biden did not have an appearance on any Fox News program outside the scheduled debate against Trump moderated by Chris Wallace. In her interview with Baier, the prototypical campaign questions were brought up — abortion, immigration, inflation and the economy.
Whether the decision to appear on Fox News will pay off for Harris is still to be determined. The Vice President attempted to demonstrate a fierce demeanor, pushing back against what she accused to be misinformation from Baier and his team. Harris made it clear in her interview that she is running on the issue of abortion, though Baier spent a majority of the segment pushing on border security and immigration, which is seen as her biggest weakness amongst undecided voters.
As for Trump, the former President has an appearance scheduled on “The Joe Rogan Experience” on Friday, an idea that was floated around by the Harris campaign last week, and still could be a possibility. Rogan’s podcast has been the most streamed podcast on Spotify in the United States since 2020.
Trump has also made recent appearances on the popular “This Past Weekend” podcast with Theo Von and “IMPAULSIVE” with Logan Paul. The former President did back out of a previously scheduled appearance with “60 Minutes,” breaking a long standing tradition of over 50 years of Presidential candidates appearing on the CBS program.
wjackso2@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of @bretbaier, Instagram
