Tom Minear: Why Kamala Harris’s refusal to take questions could be catastrophic

In the three weeks since Kamala Harris became the Democratic candidate, she has not held a proper press conference. Tom Minear argues it’s weird – and it could backfire.

When Joe Biden dropped out of the US election three weeks ago, Kamala Harris effectively became the Democratic candidate. At the time of writing, she was still yet to give an interview or hold a press conference.

To borrow her running mate Tim Walz’s favourite word for Donald Trump, it is weird. Weirder still is that other than her Republican opponents, no one seems to care.

During an Australian election, it is rare for a leader to go a day without speaking to the media multiple times. This isn’t always to their advantage – recall Anthony Albanese’s failure to remember the Reserve Bank’s cash rate – but refusing all scrutiny never seems an option.

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the Thomas and Mack Center, University of Nevada in Las Vegas, Nevada. Picture: AFP

Even a politician such as former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews regularly engaged with reporters, even though his team doubted the mainstream media’s influence.

So what is Harris’s strategy? And why isn’t it backfiring, at least not yet?

The Vice President’s emergence as her party’s nominee has sparked a wave of interest that she is evidently happy to ride, dominating the airwaves through her rallies alone to communicate an unfiltered message to voters.

This has the added benefit of infuriating Trump, who is unused to the lack of attention and is lashing out in increasingly self-destructive ways to win back the spotlight.

As one of Harris’s allies said when asked why she wasn’t exposing herself to questions: “What is the incentive?” They appear to believe doing so would be all downside, no upside, especially because she can speak powerfully from a teleprompter but is prone to embarrassing word salads when forced to think on her feet.

After a disastrous interview early in her term – in which she responded to a grilling about why she had not visited the US-Mexico border to handle the illegal immigration crisis that she had not “been to Europe” either – Harris dodged similar sit-downs for a year.

It meant she avoided more mistakes, but it also contributed to her key vulnerability now: many of the voters who will decide the election don’t know who she is or what she stands for.

Last week, to highlight Harris’s avoidance of the media, Trump took questions for more than an hour. It was a mess. The Vice President’s problem, however, is that such a performance will do little to alter the baked-in views of voters about her opponent. When Harris faces the press – and she has acknowledged she will eventually – any mistakes could be catastrophic.