Photograph: Paul Sancya/AP
First came “joy”, with some cosy but unmemorable TV sit-downs with sympathetic hosts, a Vogue cover, and a billion dollars to spend on TV ads. Then reality hit: Kamala Harris’ strategy to win over a mysterious sliver of undecided US voters was not working and she was slipping back in the polls.
So the vice president went on Fox News, part of a pitch to white working-class women, who voted for Trump more strongly in 2020 than 2016. It was a win for Fox’s news division – 7.8m viewers, or four times host Bret Baier’s nightly average – but was it a win for the Harris campaign?