Vice President Kamala Harris’ top campaign staff spoke out in their first sit-down interview since the election on the “Pod Save America” podcast. During the interview, officials offered new details about the campaign’s struggles.
Among the revelations were internal polling data that proved damaging for Harris, the reasons behind the canceled Joe Rogan interview and what staffers believe ultimately led to the campaign’s downfall.
The direction of media coverage has differed sharply, with reports shaped by the political leanings of various outlets.
Left-leaning outlets like CNN and The Associated Press focused on the staffers’ comments about the “price to be paid for a shortened campaign,” emphasizing the impact of a limited campaign timeline.
Meanwhile, right-leaning outlets such as the Washington Examiner and The Daily Wire honed in on internal polling that showed Harris consistently trailing President-elect Donald Trump.
CNN and the AP didn’t make any mention the internal polling in their coverage, while the Washington Examiner and The Daily Wire omitted comments from staffers about the campaign’s limited timeframe.
In the interview, David Plouffe, a senior adviser for the Harris campaign, discussed the disconnect between public polls and the internal numbers the campaign was seeing.
“I think it surprised people because there were these public polls that came out in late September and early October showing us with leads that we never saw,” Plouffe said. “It was basically a race that in the battlegrounds was 46-47, 47-48, so that’s not where we started. We started behind.”
Plouffe and other staffers also expressed frustration with the short amount of time they had to define Harris. They said she was largely undefined at the start of the campaign.
“This is where there was a price to be paid for the short campaign, and you can’t even say 107 days because some of that was spent shoring up the Democratic nomination,” Plouffe said. “You really need to have said everything you want to say before early voting, so we had a little more than two months.”
The Harris campaign also discussed why Harris never appeared on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, despite reports that talks had taken place.
“We had discussions with Rogan’s team, they were great, they wanted us to come on, we wanted to come on, we tried to get a date to make it work, and ultimately we just weren’t able to find a date,” Dillon said.
Staffers also discussed the campaign’s message, which was shaped by internal research suggesting a focus on attacking Trump. They defended the strategy of bringing Liz Cheney on the campaign trail in an effort to appeal to Republicans.
Another topic discussed was an ad released by the Trump campaign, which staffers called “effective.” The ad depicted Harris’ stance supporting taxpayer-funded sex-change surgeries for prisoners.
“It was a very effective ad in the end,” one staffer said. “I ultimately don’t believe it was about the issue of trans rights. I think it made her seem out of touch.”
Despite the campaign’s setbacks, Harris thanked her supporters during a call to donors. However, questions remain about the campaign’s spending, with some reports placing the total at up to $1.5 billion.
The full extent of the campaign’s finances will become clearer next month, following the post-election filing with the Federal Election Commission on Dec. 5.
