SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, sat down Thursday for their first major television interview of their presidential campaign as the duo travels in southeast Georgia on a bus tour.
The interview with CNN's Dana Bash will give Harris a chance to quell criticism that she has eschewed uncontrolled environments, while also giving her a fresh platform to define her campaign and test her political mettle ahead of an upcoming debate with former President Donald Trump set for Sept. 10. But it also carries risk as her team tries to build on momentum from the ticket shakeup following Joe Biden's exit and last week's Democratic National Convention.
Joint interviews during an election year are a fixture in politics; Biden and Harris, Trump and Mike Pence, Barack Obama and Biden — all did them at a similar point in the race. The difference is those other candidates had all done solo interviews, too. Harris hasn't yet done an in-depth interview since she became her party's standard bearer five weeks ago, though she did sit for several while she was still Biden's running mate.
Harris and Walz are still introducing themselves to voters, unlike Trump and Biden of whom people had near-universal awareness and opinion.
The CNN interview is set to air at 9 p.m. EDT. It was taped at 1:45 p.m. at Kim's Cafe, a local Black-owned restaurant in Savannah, Georgia. Harris is in the midst of a two-day bus tour through southeast Georgia that culminates with an evening rally in Savannah. Harris campaign officials believe that in order to win the state over Trump in November, she must make inroads in GOP strongholds across the state.
Harris, during her time as vice president, has done on-camera and print interviews with The Associated Press and many other outlets, a much more frequent pace than the president — except for Biden's late-stage media blitz following his disastrous debate performance that touched off the end of his campaign.
Harris' lack of media access over the past month has become one of Republicans' key attack lines. The Trump campaign has kept a tally of the days she has gone by as a candidate without giving an interview and have suggested she needs a "babysitter" and that's why Walz will be there.
"Dana Bash of CNN has a chance at greatness today. If she gave a fair but tough interview of Comrade Kamala Harris, she will expose her as being totally inept and ill suited for the job of President, much as I exposed Crooked Joe Biden during our now famous Debate," Trump posted online Thursday. "How cool would that be for Dana and CNN???"
Trump has largely steered toward conservative media outlets when granting interviews, though he has held more open press conferences in recent weeks as he sought to reclaim the spotlight that Harris' elevation had claimed.
After the CNN interview, Walz peeled off and Harris continued, stopping in at Dottie's Market in Savannah on Thursday, chatting with the owner's mom as crowds watched from the street where she told voters she'd be rolling out "basically a tax cut for start-ups, small business start-ups."
She met with volunteers too, before she heads to a rally and then back to Washington. On Wednesday, the two sent time with a high school marching band to the delight of students, and stopped by a Savannah barbecue restaurant.
Harris campaign communications director Michael Tyler said bus tours offer an "opportunity to get to places we don't usually go (and) make sure we're competing in all communities."
The campaign wants the events to motivate voters in GOP-leaning areas who don't traditionally see the candidates, and hopes that the engagements drive viral moments that cut through crowded media coverage to reach voters across the country.
The stops are meant as moments where voters can learn "not just what they stand for, but who they are as people," Tyler said.
Harris has another campaign blitz on Labor Day with Biden in Detroit and Pittsburgh with the election rapidly approaching. The first mail ballots get sent to voters in just two weeks.
Democrats' enthusiasm about their vote in November has surged over the past few months, according to polling from Gallup. About 8 in 10 Democrats now say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting, compared with 55% in March.
This gives them an enthusiasm edge they did not have earlier this year. Republicans' enthusiasm has increased by much less over the same period, and about two-thirds of Republicans now say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting.
___
Long reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.