AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
With less than a month to go before the presidential election, both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are furiously campaigning. They're trying to squeeze votes out of battleground states and from demographic pockets that don't tend to favor them. NPR's senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson is on the line with us now. Good morning, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning, Ayesha.
RASCOE: OK, so before we get into the details of what the candidates are doing, where does the race stand now? And don't tell me it's close.
(LAUGHTER)
LIASSON: It's close. People who are following this race are going nuts. It's what we call a real poll-er (ph) coaster. One day Harris is up in Michigan. The next day another poll shows she's down in Michigan. One day, Trump is winning Arizona, then he's not. The bottom line is this is a too-close-to-call race. It's tied. We've never had a race this close for this long, and neither candidate has been able to develop a lead outside the margin of error in the battleground states. And you could ask them both the same question. Why hasn't Trump developed a lead? He's had a very good hand to play. He's ahead on immigration and the economy, the top two issues for voters. He's seen as better on those, even if some of those advantages are shrinking. He's running against a historically unpopular administration. So why isn't he ahead? And you could ask the same question about Harris. She's running against a president who incited an insurrection, who voters rejected in 2020, who's been guilty - found guilty of 34 felonies, and she hasn't been able to develop a lead either. But what worries Democrats about Harris most is that she's still not where Biden was in 2020 with key groups of voters at this point in the race. In other words, African Americans, Hispanic voters and young voters - she's still not where he is. And that makes them nervous.
RASCOE: But, Mara, isn't Harris in the middle of a big media blitz to try to win those voters over?
LIASSON: She's - yes. She decided to do something outside her comfort zone. She's given a lot of interviews. She's done podcasts that have big Southern female audiences, like Call Her Daddy, as well as ones that have big Black male audiences, like All The Smoke, which is hosted by NBA champions Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. She also sat down for a "60 Minutes" interview, and that's about as standard and mainstream as you can get. Now, all of these interviews are meant to reach low-propensity voters, voters who aren't necessarily going to turn out or voters who tell polls they just don't know that much about Kamala Harris. And, you know, we are told that only about 6% of voters in the battleground states are truly undecided. That is a tiny sliver of voters. But in a race this close, every little change makes a difference.
RASCOE: It makes a big difference. OK, so if Vice President Harris has been so risk-adverse and didn't want to do these interviews, how have they been going for her? Are they doing the trick?
LIASSON: We don't know yet, but for the most part, Democrats feel it was the right strategy. It hasn't always gone her way. For instance, last week on ABC's "The View," she was asked, what, if anything, she'd do differently than President Biden, and she initially replied, there's nothing that comes to mind. That shocked a lot of people because it was an easy question to anticipate, and we know that one of her goals is to show how she's different from Joe Biden. So more than 15 minutes later in the interview, she did come back and say, she would appoint a Republican to the Cabinet, which is something Biden hasn't done. But the initial response was considered a misstep, and Donald Trump's campaign immediately made it into an attack ad. And other Democrats were surprised that in her Univision town hall on Thursday, Harris never talked about Donald Trump's plans for mass deportation of undocumented Latinos and revoking legal status for other immigrants like Haitians. Democrats want her to be more aggressive. They want her to prosecute the case against Trump as she said she would do. And a lot of other Democrats that I've talked to are just glad she's done with these interviews. They say it's the right strategies but - strategy, but it took her off the campaign trail. Now she can focus on holding big campaign events and rallies that can generate enthusiasm. She's going to be in North Carolina this weekend. She's going to be in the blue-wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin next week. And Democrats are worried that she's - her support has either plateaued or is going in the wrong direction.
RASCOE: And what has Donald Trump been doing? Like, like, what is his strategy?
LIASSON: His strategy is very different. He campaigns as if he doesn't want to reach out to swing voters, just wants to expand his base of white non-college voters. He's staying out of the national spotlight. His rallies are not covered for a national audience, and, of course, there's a reason for that because Donald Trump motivates people to vote against him as well as to vote for him. He's given some interviews, but mostly to friendly outlets and podcasts. He didn't release his health report, as Harris just did. But he will be giving a Univision town hall meeting on Wednesday, which should be interesting 'cause he's made some gains with Latino men. And otherwise, he's been running a almost 100% negative ad strategy, attacking Harris for being in favor of taxpayer-supported gender-affirming surgery for prisoners. And those attack ads, Democrats say, have been taking a toll on Harris.
RASCOE: That's NPR's Mara Liasson. Thank you so much, Mara.
LIASSON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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