Harris employs radically different approach than Hillary Clinton

Vice President Harris is taking a significantly different approach than fellow Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the final stretch of the presidential campaign. 

Harris hasn’t leaned into shattering the glass ceiling or making history the way Clinton did, even though she’d be the first woman elected to the nation’s highest office.

She’s also hyperfocused on the Midwest, including Wisconsin, a state Clinton regretted not visiting in the final days of the campaign. Clinton ended up losing the Badger State as well as Michigan and Pennsylvania, stunning Democrats at the time.

In another difference, Harris has used an advertising strategy centered around positive or contrast ads, instead of just negative ads attacking former President Trump, as Clinton employed in the last few weeks of her campaign.

That may be partly to introduce herself to a larger audience, as Harris is not nearly as well known to the public as Clinton was when she ran for president in 2016. Harris, unlike Clinton, also has a shorter window to sway voters, having only replaced President Biden at the top of the ticket in late July.

In many ways, if Harris is running a very different campaign than Clinton, it is largely because she benefits from the hindsight of seeing how Clinton lost to the same Republican who is now seeking to defeat her in November.

“Kamala saw what Hillary did, what Hillary went through, what slings and arrows came her way and she seems to be both ready for it and seemingly able to thread a needle in a way that has been very successful,” said Tracy Sefl, the veteran Democratic consultant who has served as an adviser to Clinton. “Is it fair to say that Hillary showed her the way? Yeah. Are there also a million differences? That is also true.” 

Democrats who still have nightmares over 2016 have tried to rewrite the playbook on how to beat Trump.

And of course, Trump in 2024 isn’t exactly the same candidate as Trump in 2016.

“Vice President Harris has the advantage of dealing with a less focused Donald Trump,” said Democratic strategist Joel Payne, who served as director of African American paid media and advertising during Clinton’s 2016 race. “He’s the default now. He was the disrupter then. That’s a significant difference.” 

Democrats point to Harris’s recent visit to the border as proof that they’re seeking to go on offense even on issues where Republicans may have an edge. While Biden had gotten pummeled on the issue in recent years, Harris “took a chance” on highlighting the issue when she traveled to the southern border in Arizona. 

“I think one of the biggest changes is how risk-averse we were,” one Democratic operative said, referring to the Clinton campaign. “We didn’t do anything to shake the apple cart. But I think this campaign feels good about doing those things, and that’s a huge difference.” 

Plenty of political observers don’t agree with that assessment and think Harris is running too safe a race.

These voices have complained that she is not doing more interviews with journalists who would ask her tough questions.

That’s actually a similarity with Clinton, who in 2016 largely avoided sit-down interviews during the campaign.

Radio star Howard Stern wanted to interview Clinton during her 2016 campaign and argued in his book, “Howard Stern Comes Again,” that she could have won over the voters she needed to win the election by appearing on his show. 

“So why didn’t she? I’ll tell you why. She was afraid. She got tight. She thought it was in the bag, and she thought ‘I could go talk to Howard and really screw things up,” Stern wrote in the book. “She thought it was a gamble. In my mind, the gamble was not coming on the show.” 

Sefl and other former Clinton aides point out that Harris did sit down for an interview with two former NBA players for the podcast “All the Smoke,” where she talked about race, police brutality and even her husband Doug Emhoff and her stepchildren. 

The campaign is hoping the podcast could help court men — and specifically Black men, a voting bloc that has been lukewarm toward her candidacy. 

Democrats said they wanted to see Harris out there, no matter the platform. 

“I don’t care if it’s a sports podcast or an influencer,” Sefl said. “I just care that she’s out there having substantive conversations and continuing to make the contrast with Donald Trump.”

Since becoming the Democratic nominee following Biden’s withdrawal from the race, Harris has not highlighted her own identity, something Clinton doubled down on throughout her campaign, with signs that read ‘I’m with Her’ and talk of shattering the glass ceiling. 

But even in larger moments such as her speech at the Democratic National Convention, where Harris officially accepted her party’s nomination, there was little mention of the moment’s significance or what might come next. 

During a photo-op in front of a “FEMA” sign this week on the heels of the destruction of Hurricane Helene, one former Clinton aide quipped that in 2016, they would have photoshopped an “LE” at the end of the signage. 

One of the biggest differences aides on both sides point out is Harris’s approach to Trump. 

On the airwaves, much of her approach has been to introduce herself to voters with positive ads about her professional experiences, including as a prosecutor. But she is also running a string of contrast ads where she seeks to show the contrast with Trump. 

“As a prosecutor, I never asked a victim or a witness, ‘Are you a Republican or a Democrat?’ The only thing I ever asked them: ‘Are you OK?’ And that’s the kind of president we need right now,” Harris says in one ad. “Someone who cares about you and is not putting themselves first. 

“I intend to be a president for all Americans and focus on investing right now in you, the American people. And we can chart a new way forward,” Harris concludes.

Democratic strategist Steve Schale, the director of the super PAC Unite the Country, which is also running positive and contrast spots, said the contrast ads are a “smart place” for Harris to be with about a month remaining until Election Day. 

“As long as they’re in a place where her favorables remain where they are, it’s a good spot to be,” Schale said. “And I suspect they’re going to stay in this lane that they’re in.” 

He pointed to the 2016 race when Clinton’s campaign went negative in the final weeks of the race.

“Trump wins in a race where both candidates are looked at in an extremely negative way,” he said.