Newsmax political analyst Mark Halperin stated on Tuesday that Democrats are scrutinizing Vice President Kamala Harris’s choice to remain in Washington, D.C., rather than campaigning in key swing states. Harris will be in Washington, D.C., to conduct interviews with Telemundo and NBC News, which are set to air Tuesday evening, according to Reuters. On “Wake Up America,” Halperin contended that with Harris trailing former President Donald Trump, her decision to stay in D.C. raises questions about her campaign strategy.
“Look, if she loses, there’ll be a lot of second-guessing of all sorts of decisions they made. And one of them will be what has been a light schedule. If she thinks she’s ahead — her campaign doesn’t think she’s ahead — but if they thought she was ahead, you could say she’s running out the clock, but she’s not ahead,” Halperin told the network’s morning show. “And so it’s a choice they’re making. I think a lot of it has to do with the amount of preparation time she wants and requires for the interview she’s doing today, for the town hall she has coming up, but there is head-scratching amongst Democrats, two weeks to go, someone who’s fighting for the presidency, and she’s spending the day in Washington.”
“Again, a lot of Democrats also scratching their heads. You’d think it just, you know, jump on the Amtrak and go up to Philadelphia and do something. But the reality is, as Donald Trump proves when he does, you know, national events outside of the battleground states, that NBC News interview will get coverage everywhere,” he added. “And maybe she feels like that’s going to fill in the news cycle. But, like I said, if she loses, people are going to go over her schedule and wonder why she took so many days in Washington.”
Democrats, including some of Harris’s own staffers, recently expressed concerns to Politico that the vice president’s light campaign schedule could hurt the campaign in its final stretch. Trump is currently ahead of Harris in all seven key swing states, according to RealClearPolitics averages. On October 8, Harris told “The View” that nothing “comes to mind” when asked how she would govern differently from President Biden, a response that Halperin stated has negatively impacted her campaign. “That one answer, I think probably, on balance, net did more harm for her than any good that’s come out of these interviews,” he asserted.
