Republican strategist and CNN guest Erin Perrine warned Friday that Vice President Kamala Harris could face major issues on Election Day as her campaign has not yet shifted to a “get-out-the-vote” message.
Polls between Harris and former President Donald Trump have tightened over the last month, with political pundits cautioning about how close the race will be in November. On “Erin Burnett OutFront,” the CNN host pressed Perrine on how Trump would respond to former President Barack Obama’s criticisms of him.
“Well, it is likely to bother former President Trump, and you’ll likely hear some kind of remark pushing back on what Barack Obama has said,” Perrine said.
“But then Donald Trump will go on and speak about any number of things after that. The point here for Democrats right now is they have to try and pull out every Democrat from the bench to try and be doing these get-out-the-vote events right now because they’re in such a precarious time.”
Perrine continued to state that, due to Harris’ late start in the campaign, she has fallen behind in her messaging, especially with Obama only now pushing the voting turnout message during an Arizona rally just under 20 days before the election.
“Because Kamala started this campaign so late, they are doing a lot more of persuadable messaging than they should be right now when they should be doing get-out-the-vote events like here with Obama,” Perrine added.
“They must feel that they have a stronger message in Arizona if they‘re just pushing go out and vote versus in other states and other platforms where she‘s doing some more contentious interviews to try and still push a persuasion message right now.”
“We’re what? Two-and-a-half weeks from Election Day, and you‘re still trying to persuade voters right now whether or not they should vote for you? What you should be doing is persuading them to get to the polls, and this is going to be an issue for Kamala,” Perrine concluded.
While campaigning in support of Harris, Obama has repeatedly criticized Trump, questioning why voters would choose him over the vice president.
However, during one of his first rallies for Harris in Pennsylvania, Obama faced backlash for his remarks as he lectured black men, noting that the voting bloc has not been turning out for the vice president in comparable numbers to his elections.
Trump is now leading the vice president by 0.8 points in the seven key battleground states, with 48.3% support compared to Harris’ 47.5% in the most recent RealClearPolitics polling average.
While Harris retains a slim lead nationally in polls, pollster Nate Silver released his updated prediction model Thursday for the election, showing Trump holding a slight lead over Harris by more than half a percentage point.
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