Following Kamala Harris's official nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate Thursday evening, Rep. Seth Moulton (D., Mass.) urged the vice president to start laying out "real, solid policy proposals" in the coming weeks, warning that "the honeymoon’s inevitably going to end."
"Two things are going to happen: One, the honeymoon’s inevitably going to end, and two, the Republicans are going to figure out how to attack," Moulton told Politico in a recent interview. "We have to be prepared for both of those eventualities. And that means we need to sharpen our attacks against them. We need to have real, solid policy proposals that lay out the Harris-Walz plan for America."
Moulton's warning comes after Harris's Thursday acceptance speech failed to quell mounting pressure from voters to elucidate her policy vision for the country. With just 73 days until the presidential election, Harris's campaign website still lacks a policy page. Harris will soon give her first sit-down media interview since emerging as her party’s presumptive nominee over a month ago and is set to clash with Republican nominee Donald Trump in a high-stakes debate on September 10.
Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.) echoed Moulton's concerns about the challenges looming over Harris and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
"I’ve been telling Democrats everywhere I go this week: Don’t get high on your own supply and think everyone is as energetic as you are," Slotkin said. "If you do, you obviously haven’t been to a swing state in awhile."
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore on Thursday urged fellow Democrats to put boots on the ground in must-win communities, while Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said Tuesday that Democrats "have got to play like we’re 10 points behind, because while things have improved, we have a long way to go."
"Voters choose from the gut and then rationalize their choice, consciously or not. Kamala Harris’s campaign seems premised on this latter, intuition-based approach," CNN host Fareed Zakaria wrote in a Washington Post op-ed on August 10, highlighting Harris's lack of interviews and press conferences outlining her policy agenda.
The Harris campaign is "heavy on vibes" and "seems deliberately light on substance," Zakaria said.