Democratic operatives and the Beltway media rarely see eye-to-eye these days, but in recent weeks there has been “agreement” that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz should be doing more interviews. Now, of course, they didn’t really agree. The media wanted Harris and Walz to talk on their decaying platforms and to their declining audiences (Okay, I’m being a little harsh). Democrats wanted our candidates need to be more aggressive in reaching out to local media, non-traditional media, and online influencers.

To be fair to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, their schedule was packed. Harris had to pick a VP, hire a campaign team, plan a convention, and prepare for a debate in rapid succession. Walz needed a crash course in Harris’s positions and national politics while preparing for the biggest speech and debate of his life. All the while, they were barnstorming the battleground states. So, they can be excused for not doing a ton of interviews.

That concern is fading. The Harris campaign dramatically increased the tempo of its media interactions. Last week, Kamala Harris sat down with 60 Minutes, a local Pittsburgh TV station, and the All the Smoke and Call Her Daddy podcasts. Yesterday, Tim Walz was on Fox News Sunday. This week, Harris will do interviews with The View, Stephen Colbert, and Howard Stern as well as participate in a Univision townhall. Simultaneously, Walz will be on Jimmy Kimmel and a “major podcast.”

The media — and Politico Playbook in particular — are fuming over the Harris-Walz media strategy. However, Kamala Harris is adapting to the changing media environment and strategically targeting the voters they need.

For Democrats up and down the ballot, there are lessons to learn from Kamala Harris’s approach.

A New Phase of the Campaign: The Battle for Attention

Throughout the campaign, Kamala Harris and her team have made the most of big moments. Each time, she used the platform to deliver a compelling and persuasive performance to a large audience, and her favorability increased dramatically in response. The strategy to date — which existed out of necessity because of the compressed calendar — has been to navigate tent pole moments. But these peak moments are over. There are no more debates or conventions, and no guaranteed audiences to exploit. The campaign is now a 30-day battle for attention.

There are two elements to this battle. Firstly, Kamala is trying to drive the larger, frequently metastasizing online conversation that shapes political discourse. She must be on offense at all times — say new things, be edgy enough to get attention, and dictate the terms. If she cedes ground to her opponent, she must end on defense. This could cause her campaign to take on water or, best case scenario, tread water while missing opportunities to put points on the board. In this media world, there is a never-ending, insatiable appetite for content. Either serve lunch or become the menu.

Dominating attention is Trump’s political superpower. More often than not, he doesn’t use that attention strategically. Sometimes, he gathers the largest audience possible and then steps on a rake. Witness his rally on Saturday night in Butler, Pennsylvania — the place where he was shot in the ear with an assassin’s bullet. CNN and MSNBC took his remarks live — something they rarely do for his rallies. Even when he doesn’t have a big moment, Trump speaks so outrageously that it shifts attention to his issues of choice.

Harris’s event with Liz Cheney, combined with a roll out of endorsements and new ads featuring Republicans, is an example of how the Harris campaign is scrambling for the mic. Similarly, the Harris campaign previewed a new, more aggressive tone during her trip to Michigan, which garnered more coverage than her usual rallies.

Understanding Harris’s Media Strategy

The second element of this battle is trying to reach the 5-10% of voters who are either undecided or could change their minds. Here’s my periodic reminder that contrary to most media narratives, the majority of undecided voters are not choosing between Trump and Harris; they are choosing between voting and the couch. These voters are notoriously hard to reach. They rarely engage with politics or news. This perplexes political junkies like us, but these voters aren’t following the campaign closely — or at all. Polling from Blueprint shows that nearly a third of voters hadn’t even heard of major events like the convention speeches.

Interviews on traditional platforms like CNN and MSNBC reach almost no persuadable voters. They are internal conversations among political junkies who made their decision years ago. This is reality; and too many in the Beltway media are unwilling to grasp it. Here’s Politico Playbook demonstrating a stunning combination of naivete and misplaced narcissism:

After avoiding the media for neigh on her whole campaign, VP KAMALA HARRIS is … still largely avoiding the media.

That’s not the Playbook lead her team is gonna want to read this morning after announcing at 5 a.m. that she’s blitzing the airwaves with unscripted sit-downs in the coming days … Let’s be real here: Most of these are not the types of interviews that are going to press her on issues she may not want to talk about, even as voters want more specifics from Harris. Instead, expect most of these sit-downs to be a continuation of the “vibes” campaign Harris has perfected.

Politico doesn’t count local media interviews as substantive enough to meet their standards, which is quite the tell. It’s not about a Free Press or holding the powerful to account, it’s about maintaining their relevance. It’s also astounding that they leveled this critique when Walz appeared on Fox News Sunday and the day before Harris appeared on 60 Minutes — the toughest interview in the business.

Specifically, the Harris campaign is targeting outlets that have two characteristics. The shows reach people who don’t usually consume political media, and they are the shows most frequently clipped and shared on TikTok. Call Her Daddy is one of the biggest podcasts in the world. Alex Cooper, the host, has millions followers on TikTok. Yes, her audience is mostly younger women and that’s Harris’s strength, but there is room to grow and Cooper reaches plenty of women who don’t follow politics closely.

All the Smoke and The Howard Stern Show have largely male audiences, which is critical in a campaign that needs to make up ground with younger men. Even people who don’t watch these shows will likely see the clips in their algorithmic feeds. Similarly, her local TV interviews reach people in the exact markets that will be critical to winning the Electoral College.

The media environment of 2024 differs dramatically from recent elections and her campaign’s media strategy needs to reflect that reality. The Trump campaign’s strategy has been heavily indexed on the platforms, and influencers who reach less politically engaged men — podcasters like Theo Von and Lex Fridman are at its core. Kamala Harris’s strategy reflects the fact that Alex Cooper is more impactful than a nightly news anchor or Sunday Show host. Not a great thing for democracy, and it's a very bitter pill for most political reporters to swallow, but it is undoubtedly true.

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