Vice President Kamala Harris is making a “mistake” by avoiding the press, crisis communication expert James Haggerty told Newsweek.
The last three weeks have been smooth sailing for Harris’ campaign. The Democratic nominee has managed to fend off Republican attacks, to keep the momentum of her campaign going with her VP choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, and to secure a growing list of GOP endorsements.
Her campaign has also deployed a successful communication strategy, thus far, exploding onto the social media scene hours after President Joe Biden exited the presidential race. Both the coconut meme and her campaign’s “Brat” rebrand have propelled Harris into digital fame, further bolstering her appeal to young voters. But all of that could change soon, Haggerty said.
Despite packing campaign visits onto her schedule, Harris has largely avoided questions from the press since she was catapulted to the top of the ticket three weeks ago. She gave her first impromptu gaggle on Thursday, after a rally in Michigan, offering reporters just 70 seconds of her time.
Aside from that, she has kept most of her public appearances scripted, reading from teleprompters at rallies instead of giving press conferences or sitting for interviews. But her refusal to engage with reporters is slowly becoming a talking point for her opponents.
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It’s led Republican vice presidential candidate, Senator JD Vance, to accuse Harris of running a “basement campaign,” to circulate the hashtag #wheresKamala and to ask the public, “What kind of election can you have if your own presidential candidate won’t actually answer the tough questions?”
When their calendars overlapped Wednesday, putting both Vance and Harris on the tarmac of a Wisconsin airport, Vance told reporters, “I just wanted to check out my future plane but I also wanted to go say hello to the vice president and ask her why… does she refuse to answers from the media?”
“A key element we teach in effective communications response is to inoculate against negative attacks before they can stick,” Haggerty, the president and CEO of PRCG Haggerty LLC, said. “In this case, one of the knocks against the VP is that she is gaffe-prone and not effective if she’s not scripted. So why give your detractors further ammo by ducking?”
Even reporters are raising their eyebrows at Harris’ decision to sidestep the press. The New York Times published a piece Friday with the headline, “Kamala Harris Isn’t Giving Interviews. Any Questions?” Politico titled the Wednesday edition of its West Wing Playbook, “Why Harris isn’t taking questions.”
“I suspect there is a feeling in her campaign that [speaking to the media] would stall the momentum she’s achieved over the past few weeks. It’s a mistake,” Haggerty said. “My advice would be to get out there, do some one-on-one interviews, and put this negative notion to bed once and for all.”
“The more you watch politics, the more you see campaign after campaign overplay their hand by expecting good vibes to last forever,” he added. “One need only to look at the Trump campaign coming out of the Republican convention to see this. Even as you’re riding high, you’ve got to be looking downfield—and in this case, it’s for ways to limit the damage from the next attack.”
Three weeks ago, fresh off an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania, former President Donald Trump headed into the Republican National Convention with strong support from all corners of the GOP’s tent. Over four nights, the Republican nominee received glowing endorsements from his primary rivals with his entire family by his side. In a rare event, Trump offered the idea of a unified party that the GOP had not seen in a long time.
Yet, less than three days after the convention concluded, Biden bowed out and endorsed Harris, shaking up the presidential race and delivering a blow to Trump’s campaign.
But while Haggerty warned that the Harris campaign’s honeymoon could too be upended without notice, public relations expert Richard Laermer thinks Harris should wait for the right chance to address reporters.
“My gut feeling is she’s waiting till she’s got something to say before meeting with the media,” Laermer told Newsweek. “Two weeks ago she was the lowly Veep. She needs to breathe and prepare and become the candidate.”
He said that while it’s important for the media to know who Harris is as a candidate, “she also needs to arrive at the reason why she should be our leader.” He added that she’s “smart enough” to wait until she can answer that question, but that rushing to get here “is how she will get in trouble.”
“Right now she’s the flavor of the minute,” Laermer, CEO of RLM Public Relations, said. “As we all know blurting things out in interviews – major and minor – can take the flavor out of a campaign in seconds.”
He continued, “Attacks she can handle. Because that comes with the territory. She seems to have an especially thick skin. But bad press that emanates from ill-prepared remarks can take the wind out of her campaign. And then she will be on the offensive for a good long time!”
