Panic sets in for Democrats as polls tighten and media interviews fall flat

Vice President Kamala Harris’s media blitz has yet to see a payoff in the polls.

The Democratic presidential nominee has taken part in a series of high-profile interviews in the past week after months of Republican complaints she was ducking scrutiny. But they haven’t yet seemed to move the needle much in her favor.

Both candidates have plateaued in recent weeks; she has a 2.6-point lead over Trump in the latest average of national polls, FiveThirtyEight averages show.

Harris has raked in praise for her openness in her Call Her Daddy interview and her ability to weave through light-hearted and heavy topics with Stephen Colbert. Still, polls don’t suggest that her recent appearances have made much of a difference with voters.

“We all knew this would be hard,” one Democratic consultant told The Hill. “It’s going to come down to the wire. No one knows how this will end. That’s almost the scariest part.”

Perhaps some of that lack of change is due to her stance on guns.

The vice president has repeatedly mentioned that she owns a gun. She told Oprah Winfrey last month: “If somebody breaks into my house they’re getting shot.” Harris clarified during her “60 Minutes” interview this week that she owns a “Glock,” a type of handgun. As San Francisco district attorney in 2005, Harris supported a measure that aimed to ban handguns in the city.

The fact that she — as well as her running mate Tim Walz — are gun owners adds nuance to the conversation around gun safety and cuts into the Trump campaign’s message that she would “confiscate everybody’s gun” if elected. In the process, though, she could be alienating some of her base. More men than women, more Republicans than Democrats, and more white Americans than people of color own guns, according to a 2024 Pew Research study.

On top of this, nearly six in 10 Americans favor stricter gun laws. Harris has said she backs assault weapons bans, universal background checks, and red-flag laws, calling the measures “common sense” — but the image of her as a gun owner could cloud these claims.

A Democratic strategist told The Hill that the fact that she owns a gun could resonate with moderates who may be tired of Trump. Meanwhile, Richard Feldman, a former NRA lobbyist who has called for “meaningful gun law reforms,” told the New York Times that Harris runs the risk of not appealing to many gun owners over her pro-assault weapons ban stance.

The effects of the current Democratic ticket’s nuanced gun stance on undecided voters are yet to be seen.

The vice president has also chosen not to distance herself from President Joe Biden, perhaps putting a damper on the bright, promising image she has curated since moving to the top of the ticket. Biden trailed Trump at the time he exited the race. But Harris has since closed the gap and made gains, putting her consistently ahead of Trump essentially from the time she entered the race.

Democrats rallied behind Harris, energized by the prospect of a younger, new candidate with potentially different views on hot-button issues like the migrant crisis and the war in Gaza.

But when asked on The View this week if she would do anything differently than Biden during his term, she replied: “There is not a thing that comes to mind.” She added that she has been “a part of most of the decisions that have had impact” in the Biden administration.

Trump immediately slammed Harris’ response in a Truth Social post: “Lyin’ Kamala, who is being exposed as a ‘dummy’ every time she does a show, just stated to the degenerates on ‘The View’ that she would have done nothing different than Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.”

Similarly, when pressed by Bill Whitaker on “60 Minutes” about whether it was a “mistake to loosen the immigration policies as much as you did,” noting the “historic flood” of undocumented immigrants, Harris replied without specifics: “It’s a longstanding problem. And solutions are at hand. And from day one, literally, we have been offering solutions.”

Craig Agranoff, a professor of political marketing at Florida Atlantic University, told Newsweek: “Her answers, particularly on the border and the differences between her administration and Biden’s, seem to have left both Republicans and some Democrats unsatisfied.”

One major donor told The Hill that the race looked like a “flip of the coin.”

“I feel better than I did last week, but it still doesn’t feel great,” the donor said. “I have a pit in my stomach.” This donor felt that her messaging on the economy may not be resonating.

Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis agreed. “If I had one piece of advice: They need a much, much stronger and detailed economic message,” Kofinis told NBC News. “Talking about aspirations, hopes and dreams is not a message. The economic issue is still Trump’s core advantage and one of the only reasons this race is as close as it is.”

The economy is the top issue for swing-state voters, polls show. As it currently stands, 45 per cent of battleground-state voters think Harris can better handle the economy, slightly trailing Trump’s 49 percent.