Donald Trump has entered the final stretch of the 2024 election with roaring enthusiasm, outpacing the Harris/Walz team regarding campaign events in September. During said period, Trump hosted an astounding 21 public appearances, ranging from rallies to press conferences, with running mate JD Vance close behind at 14. In stark contrast, Kamala Harris appeared in just 13, with her number two, Tim Walz, trailing with a measly 7.
It seems a calculated effort by the Democrats to run a ticket that the American people know as little as possible about and make the entire election about moral posturing. Vague references to some apocalyptic eruption if Trump is elected, with no regard for the idea that he has already served a full term with no leftover evil agenda at play. Meanwhile, Harris is actually in charge yet will take no active responsibility for the state of our nation nor provide concrete details for her future plans.
A significant portion of Trump’s ground game has been concentrated in the ever-critical Keystone State, which currently gives Harris a .04% edge over the former President. Given its varying economic and social pockets, Pennsylvania boasts a uniquely diverse electorate, and the Trump team seems willing to flip the vote county-by-county. The Vice President has done more in-studio than in-person, with most of the output carefully edited in post-production. Harris has focused on more scripted, controllable narratives as opposed to spontaneous interactions with the media or voters. Podcasts, the View, Howard Stern, and Oprah hardly constitute a press conference, of which the Lady Harris has held none. Trump, meanwhile, openly converses with those along the campaign trail as he has done since he first announced his candidacy in 2015.
Harris may be replicating the Biden strategy of 2020, which involved as little contact with other human beings as possible under the guise of COVID-19 protocols. The Biden/Harris team was shepherded to the White House with minimal media scrutiny, a practice the President continued into his administration. During his first year in office, Biden held half as many news conferences as his predecessor, Trump, and relied significantly more on prepared remarks.
Even stranger is the idea that Republican hopeful Donald Trump is making his third run for President, while Walz has no national campaigning history and Harris had only a secondary role in 2020. The candidates about which we know the absolute least are those practically refusing to participate- foisting the onus on Trump to prove his qualifications thrice. Absent a significant media event, it seems we will be closing out the 2024 cycle knowing as little about the Democratic ticket as we have in history, even with modern technology allowing for near-constant contact.
Hilary Gunn is a Connecticut native with a degree in Criminal Justice from the George Washington University. She works for a nonprofit and has previously collaborated with the CT GOP as an activist, political campaign manager and field director, and social media organizer. She is currently serving in her fourth term of municipal office and has previously acted as a delegate on the Republican Town Committee.