Democratic strategists and donors criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic messaging, saying her recent media appearances have fallen flat with voters as the election draws closer, the Hill reported.
"I feel better than I did last week, but it still doesn’t feel great. I have a pit in my stomach," one Democratic donor told the Hill, noting that Harris’s economic messaging in her recent interviews was not resonating with voters.
"The economy is issues number 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5," the donor said.
After largely avoiding the media and press in the first two months as the Democratic nominee, Harris went on a media blitz this week, sitting down with the Call Her Daddy podcast, The View, the Howard Stern Show, 60 Minutes, and the Late Show. Her performance, however, did little to calm the nerves of Democrats, the Hill reported.
"She is still fine-tuning her message 28 days out, and I’m sorry, we are in the make-the-sale phase of the campaign now; we’re not still tweaking the message," one Democratic strategist said.
Anthony Coley, a Democratic strategist who served in the Biden administration, also acknowledged that the "sugar high" voters had over Harris when she first replaced President Joe Biden was gone.
"Now that the sugar high is gone people have realized what Kamala Harris has said from the start, which is that she is the underdog," Coley said.
"If you’re not nervous, you’re not paying attention," Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons, who served as Harris’s former communications director, told the Hill.
Since replacing her boss at the top of the ticket, Harris has struggled to build a clear campaign platform. Her team has walked back multiple policy positions she supported in the past—such as a fracking ban and Medicare for All—and tried to distance the vice president from the failures of the Biden administration.
One Democratic consultant worried that although he believes that Harris’s campaign is "doing all the right things," it "may not be enough" to get her into the Oval Office.