Harris campaign could devolve into 'finger-pointing' if polls go south, warns reporter
Axios' Alex Thompson warned on Monday that there could be some "subtle finger-pointing" within the Harris campaign if polling goes south for them.
Axios' Alex Thompson said Monday that there could be some "subtle finger pointing" within Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign if polling gets worse for them, noting some tension within the Harris team.
"These polls in Kamala Harris‘ world are really sort of keeping together this campaign. Because this campaign, this is not the ideal way to run a presidential campaign, you know, entering just a few months ago. And then none of these, a lot of these people, are not people that she hired that are on this campaign. It's sort of a combination of Biden people, who she doesn‘t totally trust, her own people, plus all these Obama 2012 operatives," Thompson said during an appearance on "CNN This Morning."
While Harris has surged in national polling, new swing state polling from the New York Times/Siena College shows former President Trump leading in key states such as Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona.
"As long as the polls are good, then things are going to keep going well. But if the polling ever turns south, there are a lot of, sort of, subtle tensions within this world, and you could start seeing some subtle finger pointing. Now that being said, they’re going to keep saying, ‘we are the underdog, we are the underdog, we are the underdog,’ that is their talking point," Thompson said.
Thompson said the Harris campaign was feeling good about where they are in the race.
"That‘s part of the reason also why they are not doing interviews. Because they feel that they can still coast, and let Donald Trump be the main character, and possibly still win," he added.
Harris has done a few interviews since becoming the Democratic nominee, including one on CNN and one with Black Journalists and the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ.)
She has also spoken to local radio stations.
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The Harris campaign's Brian Fallon told Politico that people were overanalyzing Harris doing very few interviews since becoming the Democratic candidate.
"Number one, people should not read too much into what some have described as a shortage or a lack of interviews in the first six weeks of the campaign," he said.
Fallon also argued that Harris' media appearances as vice president spoke to what voters should expect of her press interviews in the remaining 50 days until Election Day.
"Because Kirsten Allen, who has run her communications office on the official side, had her doing a heavy rotation of daytime talk shows, national print interviews with magazines, national sit-downs with television outlets like 60 Minutes late last year, cable hits — she did like 80-plus interviews in the first seven months of this year. And so that is a default setting for Kamala Harris in terms of media engagement," Fallon said.
Fallon added, "the remaining 50 days of this campaign will look like… something closer to that."
The Harris campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.
