As the presidential contest enters its final, frenzied sprint, Vice President Kamala Harris is leveraging her most powerful allies in a last-ditch effort to sway the dwindling number of undecided voters in key swing states. Harris’ strategy isn’t just good politics; it’s a reminder that Democrats have learned the lessons of Hillary Clinton’s complacency in the closing weeks of the 2016 campaign.
Harris’ surge in surrogate campaigning comes as the vice president faces tightening state and national polls, including an NBC News national poll that recorded a 4-point bump for former President Donald Trump. The big question, of course, is whether surrogates are making Harris’ case as well as the vice president herself does.
There’s no doubt that Harris’ swing-state blitz is born out of concerns that her initial surge in the polls may not be resonating with Democrats’ core must-win voter groups.
The Harris campaign has deployed her party’s best communicators as far afield as Wisconsin, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia. They include big-name Republicans like former Rep. Liz Cheney and former Trump administration officials Anthony Scaramucci and Olivia Troye to build her case. The result is a coalition of Democratic boosters unlike any in political memory.
There’s no doubt that Harris’ swing-state blitz is born out of concerns that her initial surge in the polls may not be resonating with Democrats’ core must-win voter groups. In recent weeks Democratic insiders have raised concerns that voter engagement efforts undertaken by the Harris-aligned Future Forward PAC have fallen short of expectations.
Despite significant gains since she took over party leadership, Democratic experts have criticized Future Forward PAC for its siloed approach to engaging nonwhite and first-time voters, both crucial elements of Harris’ election strategy. Those whispered disagreements spilled out into public view last month when two Democratic organizations published a memo expressing concern about Trump’s gains among voters of color and younger voters — especially Black and Hispanic men.
Those concerns have clearly struck a nerve for Harris’ campaign. In the past weeks, the vice president has dispatched a flurry of high-profile politicians to amplify her message in communities Future Forward PAC has struggled to engage. And those concerns were clearly occupying Obama’s thoughts when he took the stage at Thursday’s Pennsylvania rally.
“My understanding, based on reports I’m getting from campaigns and communities is that we have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running,” Obama said. “That seems to be more pronounced with the brothers.”
Obama chastised Black men who he argued were “thinking about sitting out,” saying, “Part of it makes me think, and I’m speaking to men directly … well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.”
The Harris campaign is also fielding help from one of Nevada’s most influential labor unions, likely in an effort to counter Trump’s growing popularity among large sections of the Hispanic population.
“We think if the election was today, we would lose Nevada,” said one official with Culinary Workers Union Local 226. That kind of frank concern was once aired only in private meetings with Harris’ campaign team. Now it’s a Politico headline.
But if organizations like the Culinary Workers Union are concerned, they are also deeply motivated. It announced Thursday that it was deploying “the largest canvassing team in Nevada” to knock on doors and make calls for Harris, including many of its over 60,000 members. Long a dominant political force in Nevada, the Culinary Workers Union is also a trusted voice for many middle-of-the-road voters who may be unsure about casting ballots for Harris.
The Harris-Walz campaign is also rolling out a growing roster of senior Republican officials who have raised increasingly dire alarms about what a second Trump presidency might look like. None have hit the hustings quite like Cheney, who recently headlined a Wisconsin rally where she invoked the brutal images of Jan. 6 as reason enough to keep Trump out of power. “I tell you, I have never voted for a Democrat, but this year, I am proudly casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris,” Cheney said. “Donald Trump was willing to sacrifice our Capitol, to allow law enforcement officers to be beaten and brutalized in his name and to violate the law and the Constitution in order to seize power for himself. … That is depravity, and we must never become numb to it.” Cheney has been so visible an advocate for Harris’ candidacy that many speculate Harris may end up offering her a place in her administration. She’ll need to battle former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who may also be hoping that his tireless campaigning for Harris results in a plum White House appointment. By drawing in persuadable Republicans and independent voters, the efforts of Cheney, Kinzinger, former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and other respected Republicans could help offset Harris’ weaker numbers among Black and Hispanic men. But with political polarization at historic highs, it’s unclear whether there are enough undecided or persuadable voters to make up for an underperforming Democratic base. With just over three weeks until Election Day, campaign insiders say there is still time for a course correction, but such a quick shift will take more than an army of top political names. Curious voters may line up around the block to hear a superstar like Obama or an anti-Trump Republican like Cheney, but they are ultimately being asked to cast their ballots for Harris. In order to do that, voters still say they need to hear more from Harris herself. Trump’s cowardice denied the American people another presidential debate and robbed them of a valuable opportunity to evaluate both candidates side-by-side. Meaning Harris will need to redouble an already packed media and campaign schedule to ensure as many voters as possible get their information directly from the source. Surrogates remain a powerful tool in national politics, especially when a candidate can assemble a cross-party coalition of the effective, respected communicators. But that’s no substitute for the real thing. It’s time for Harris to pull out all the stops and make her powerful voice a constant presence on televisions and in town halls from coast to coast. Yes, even Alaska.
Max Burns is a Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies. Find him on X, @themaxburns. 
