Harris’s ‘basement strategy’ has not helped her electability: Kaylee McGhee White

Kaylee McGhee White argued that Vice President Kamala Harris’s “basement strategy” has not helped her ahead of the next debate as new polling has indicated she is losing ground in several battleground states .

Since joining the 2024 presidential race in July, Harris has largely avoided the press while on the campaign trail, only doing one interview with her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), last month. White, the Restoring America editor for the Washington Examiner, argued last week that this was part of her strategy to “avoid hard questions” and that this strategy has borne little fruit in her presidential bid.

“Remember, she’s avoided the press this long in the hopes of avoiding tough questions about her past record,” White said on Fox News’s Fox & Friends First. “She doesn’t want to have to explain her policy flip-flops. And, of course, at the DNC, you had several major Democratic figures get up on that stage and try to portray Kamala Harris as the change agent despite her record being tied with President Joe Biden’s. This strategy has not worked at all, and these polls simply confirm that.”

White added that by avoiding the press ahead of the debate, Harris has “raised the stakes for herself” due to how she will be forced to answer questions alongside former President Donald Trump directly from the press. She also contended that the debate is an important chance for Harris to make “a better impression” of herself than she has in this presidential race.

Regarding the debate itself, White predicted that it is a question of when, not if, Harris will refer to Trump as a “convicted felon” as the vice president has “always done better” when she is asking the questions. Prior to the debate, Harris’s campaign had fought to change the debate’s rules to have microphones live throughout the debate’s entirety, rather than using the muted microphone strategy that CNN used.

“Those rules have not been changed, though. She will be dealing with muted mics, which means that she is going to have to be the one to answer questions,” White said. “She is going to have to explain her policy flip-flops, and as we know, she has tried to avoid doing so.”

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Last month, sports journalist Stephen A. Smith argued that Harris needs to “stand on” her record and encouraged her to talk with the press about her sudden change in policies. He also expressed a desire to know how much Harris knew about President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, as these are “legitimate questions” for a presidential candidate.

According to the newest poll from the New York Times and Siena College, conducted between Tuesday and Friday, the pre-debate polling boost that Trump received over the weekend put him up slightly over Harris by 1 percentage point — a result that is within the margin of error of 2.8 points. Tuesday night’s debate could tip the scale in the favor of either candidate since 28% of likely voters said they needed to know more about Harris, while 9% said the same about Trump.