Trump, Harris both criticised for campaign strategies
moments tracked. NEWS.COM.AU
AMERICA’S presidential candidates are both being criticised more and more for their style of campaigning, albeit for different reasons, with just under 90 days left until the election.
Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, has been blitzing key swing states this week alongside her newly announced pick for the vice presidency, Tim Walz. Each day her schedule involves multiple speeches to large, excited crowds of her supporters.
And that’s working for her, it seems, with polls now indicating she may even be a slight favourite to beat the Republican nominee, former president Donald Trump.
But one thing is conspicuously absent from her campaign: scrutiny.
Ms Harris has not sat down for a single interview since she took over from President Joe Biden upon his withdrawal from the race last month. She is not subjecting herself to press conferences with journalists. At best, Ms Harris has Ɲelded a handful of questions on the tarmac before boarding Air Force Two.
Speaking to adoring crowds is all well and good, but at some point, Ms Harris is going to have to subject herself to tough questions. She seems to be avoiding them.
“This is a person who has been a presumptive Democrat nominee for 16 days. She hasn’t taken a single real question from a reporter,” the Republican vice presidential nominee, J.D. Vance, said this week.
“The American people deserve to get to know the people who want to lead them, and I think it’s shameful for Kamala Harris, but increasingly for the media, that she is taking a basement strategy of running from reporters instead of getting in front of them and answering tough questions about her record and letting the American people know who she is.”
Mr Trump has something like the opposite problem.
While Ms Harris and Mr Walz have been crisscrossing the country this week, often visiting two or three states in the same day, Mr Trump has been holed up at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, barely appearing in public at all.