Few candidates have had as successful a campaign launch as Vice President Kamala Harris, raising hundreds of millions, moving up in polls and energizing the base. The Harris campaign notched an additional $36 million in the 24 hours after announcing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, and as the Democratic ticket swung across the country, it drew large, raucous crowds.
After three weeks of unbelievable momentum, Harris now faces the huge — and historically unusual — challenge of sustaining the energy of a fresh campaign for a 90-day sprint into Election Day. She’s growing into her new role as she faces economic uncertainty, a politically volatile situation in the Middle East and questions about her own ability to meet the challenges of a tough campaign.
From major policy issues to the campaign’s media strategy, here are five big questions facing the ticket in the months ahead.
Is Harris prepared to go off script?
Grumbling among reporters and columnists picked up this week about Harris not sitting for questions from the press. And Republicans are hammering the point, with former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, holding press conferences of their own to draw a contrast.
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Harris’ last formal sit-down interview was on June 24, with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to mark the anniversary of the Dobbs decision. She spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper days after, following President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance.
She hasn’t put any other interviews or press conferences on her schedule. And her team appears in no rush to get something on the books.
After Trump and Vance’s press conferences, Harris briefly gaggled with reporters Thursday and said her team is looking to schedule an interview by the end of the month. There have been discussions about a joint interview with Harris and Walz ahead of the convention kick-off in Chicago on Aug. 19.
But Harris’ top communications aides are deeply skeptical that doing big interviews with major TV networks or national newspapers will reach the swing voters they need in November — thinking that mirrors the much-maligned approach of Biden’s inner circle.
It’s worth looking back to her June 2021 interview with NBC’s Lester Holt to glean why Harris might be reluctant to sit for an interview. The Holt interview, during which she was pressed on why she hadn’t visited the southern border, arguably damaged her.
On the other hand, Harris seems to have found a firmer footing since then — her on-air defense of Biden minutes after the debate became the talking points others in the party used to try to stop the political bleeding. People in Harris’ orbit saw it as a representation of how far she’s come.
The other looming question is if she’s willing to go head-to-head with Trump more than once. The former president finally came around to the previously agreed upon debate set for ABC on Sept. 10 in a freewheeling press conference Friday, but he also pitched two other face-offs. Harris expressed openness to other debates but has yet to address whether she’ll accept.
Can Harris convince voters to trust her with the economy?
Voters are still deeply worried about the economy and inflation. We got a sample of the vice president’s economic message during her speeches this week, when she acknowledged that prices are still too high, framing the race as a “fight for the future.”
And at a recent rally in Atlanta, she signaled plans to go on the offense on the economy, promising to address price gouging, bring down costs, ban hidden fees and late charges from financial institutions, limit “unfair” rent increases and cap prescription drug costs. Those are policies she said would “lower costs and save many middle-class families thousands of dollars a year.”
But public perception of the economy is a weak spot for Democrats. And Harris doesn’t have much time to make up lost ground. A recent poll shows Trump is still obliterating Harris on the economy by a 2-to-1 margin, with Americans saying they would be financially better off under Trump. Though new polling indicates Harris is gaining ground on the issue.
The partisan divide is striking — 79 percent of Republicans hold this belief in a new CNBC poll this week. But Harris has a lot of work to do on the issue with Democrats, too: Just 48 percent of Democrats believe they will be better off if Harris wins.
Monday’s global stock market tumbles marked a significant reversal from the cooling inflation and steady growth economists had been pointing to in recent weeks, and it was also a reminder that voters’ gloominess over the economy could hurt Harris’ campaign. Markets calmed by the end of the week, but the next few weeks will be closely watched — and the Federal Reserve may not offer any relief from high interest rates until September.
Can Harris beat back Trump’s border attacks?
The border was one of Biden’s biggest vulnerabilities, and now it’s Harris’, too. Republicans have slapped her with the title of “border czar” tied to when Biden asked her to work with Central American countries to address the root causes of migration.
The Harris campaign has taken a more active posture on the issue in recent weeks, releasing another ad Friday defending Harris’ record on border security — a message you wouldn’t have heard from the vice president during her last run for the White House in 2019.
Harris is running this time on Biden’s asylum crackdown, while also touting solutions for undocumented immigrants who have long resided in the U.S., like the policies the White House rolled out earlier this summer. And of course, she plans to slam Trump for killing a bipartisan border bill this spring, an argument campaign aides believe will break through to voters.
With the border ranking as a top concern for Americans, Harris may not have a choice but to try to find a way to make the issue an advantage. And if border crossings begin to tick up this fall as temperatures cool, this task could become even tricker.
Will Harris try to differentiate herself from Biden on Israel?
After protesters disrupted her rally in Michigan this week and advocates asked for a private meeting to discuss changes to arms policy with the vice president, it became clear that Harris is not going to be able to escape the Israel-Gaza issue that has divided the Democratic Party.
Activists tend to view Harris more favorably on the issue than Biden and are debating among themselves the best path forward for pressuring the Democratic ticket. But even the divide in the protest movement won’t stop planned protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago or the potential return to unrest when college students return to campus this month.
It’s placed Harris in a political tight spot. She’s still serving as Biden’s vice president, even as she tries to shore up support among Democratic voters. Now she’ll have to decide whether she sticks to Biden’s policy, making the assumption that the progressive wing of her party will get in line come November, or whether she wants to make a play to Arab American voters and young voters who are pleading for restrictions on weapons sent to Israel.
How will the Harris campaign respond to Trump’s kitchen sink?
Trump knows how to suck up the political oxygen — and he’s resorting back to his 2016 tactics by offering up freewheeling press conferences and launching vicious statements on social media.
The former president has thrown a barrage of attacks Harris’ way, as the Trump campaign tries to nail a consistent message against the Harris-Walz campaign. Among other critiques, he’s labeled Harris and Walz “the most Radical Left duo in American history.” He’s called Harris “low IQ” and resorted to race- and gender-based attacks.
That strategy was on full display after Trump’s interview at the National Association of Black Journalists conference last week, where he questioned Harris’ Black identity and suggested she was chosen for the job only as a “DEI hire.”
The Harris campaign and other Democrats have denounced Trump’s attacks before quickly pivoting back to their own messaging. They believe that drawn-out combat would serve Trump’s interests more than theirs.
The question now is whether or not Democrats can stick to this strategy, because with Trump, it’s no easy task.
