Politico reports:

Democratic operatives, including some of Kamala Harris’ own staffers, are growing increasingly concerned about her relatively light campaign schedule, which has her holding fewer events than Donald Trump and avoiding unscripted interactions with voters and the press almost entirely.

In interviews with POLITICO, nearly two dozen Democrats described Harris as running a do-no-harm, risk-averse approach to the race they fear could hamper her as the campaign enters its final 30-day stretch.

With early voting by mail and in person already underway in more than half of the country, Harris spent just three days of the last week of September in battleground states. On Sept. 28, when Trump gave a speech in Wisconsin before flying to Alabama for the Georgia-Alabama football game, Harris was attending a fundraiser in San Francisco. And beyond concerns about her schedule, Democrats argue that Harris would benefit from venues that allow her to introduce herself to voters in a more authentic way, such as town hall events, more sit-down interviews and unscripted exchanges with voters.

“There’s a time at which you just have to barnstorm these battlegrounds,” said David Axelrod, the longtime Democratic operative who helped lead Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns and was an early critic of President Joe Biden’s campaigning style. “These races are decathlons, and there are a lot of events, and you have to do all of them because people want to test you.”

“It’s the most difficult oral exam on the planet for the most difficult job, and part of that is just that spontaneous — town halls, all kinds of interviews, and not just friendly interviews. OTRs where you interact in a substantive way with people, all of those things are valuable,” he continued. “And I would be doing them if I were her.” [Continue reading…]