Former Vice President Kamala Harris made a considerable effort to get on Joe Rogan’s standard podcast amid issues about her traction with male voters — going as far as to plan a Houston rally to justify a cease at Rogan’s Austin studio, in line with a forthcoming guide.
For Harris, stopping within the solidly crimson Lone Star State within the waning days of her marketing campaign threatened to attract scrutiny and waste assets. However as her marketing campaign weathered accusations that she was dodging robust interviews and staring down shaky help from younger males, a displaying on Rogan’s standard program was seen as a giant potential increase value working for.
“Harris had less than zero reason to be in Texas. It was not a swing state. Her campaign was flush with cash—so it made no sense to take her off the trail to raise money. She was in battleground-or-bust mode. Plus, a detour to Texas might smell like desperation to the press and a waste of money to donors,” an excerpt from “FIGHT” reads.
FULL EXCERPT: The ticktock of the Harris-Rogan sit-down falling aside
So the Harris group deliberate to fly Harris to Houston for an Oct. 25, 2024, rally, Allen and Parnes reported, “under the cover of visiting a state with one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion laws — to put her in proximity to Austin.”
Rogan, some of the standard and controversial media personalities within the nation, had beforehand mentioned he wasn’t a Trump supporter. However his three-hour interview with the Republican 2024 front-runner went rapidly viral, and Rogan ultimately endorsed him for a return to the Oval Workplace.
The failure to search out settlement on a possible sit-down for Harris could have blunted efforts by the previous vp to succeed in younger males, who make up the majority of Rogan’s large fan base.
Younger voters have traditionally swung for Democrats and helped push former President Biden to victory in 2020, however the Trump marketing campaign’s pointed deal with younger males appeared to capitalize on a rising gender divide, with younger male voters transferring away from the Democratic Occasion.
With the accelerated timeline of her fast-tracked marketing campaign, Harris appeared to make use of focused appearances to succeed in key demographics, similar to sitting down for Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast, broadly standard amongst girls.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), Harris’s vice presidential candidate, performed video video games on Twitch with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), which the Harris-Walz marketing campaign pointed to as proof of their efforts to “meet young men where they are.”
However the marketing campaign nonetheless struggled to succeed in younger males, who consultants have mentioned have been catered to by the Trump marketing campaign with its appeals to hypermasculinity.
A Harvard College ballot simply forward of the election discovered Harris led Trump amongst each younger women and men, however whereas she led by 30 factors amongst younger girls, she was simply 10 factors forward with younger males.
It was the newest in a string of indicators throughout the final a number of cycles that youthful males have been transferring away from Democrats, whereas girls of all age teams have appeared to develop extra more likely to establish as liberal.
Parnes and Allen additional reported that there was one “final stab” from Harris aides to supply Rogan one other assembly, this time in Washington after Harris made an Oct. 29 closing argument speech.
“For the record the Harris campaign has not passed on doing the podcast,” Rogan wrote on the social platform X on Oct. 29. “They offered a date for Tuesday, but I would have had to travel to her, and they only wanted to do an hour.”
In the long run, the Harris-Rogan sit-down by no means materialized.
Harris went via together with her Oct. 25 Houston rally, and was endorsed on-stage by music celebrity Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, whose tune “Freedom” was used because the Harris marketing campaign anthem.
There had been buzz that the “Texas Maintain ‘Em” singer might appear at the Democratic National Convention, though a performance didn’t materialize. “FIGHT” reviews that there have been plans for Beyoncé to sing on the Houston occasion, citing a supply that mentioned the group deliberate for “her singing ‘Freedom’ a capella before Harris walked on stage.” In the long run, nevertheless, Beyoncé would solely converse, not sing.
Harris-Walz raked in A-list backers for the fast-tracked marketing campaign, together with Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey and James Taylor.
However in postmortems of the election, Democrats have questioned whether or not movie star endorsements helped or hindered Harris, as her occasion was pelted with accusations it was out-of-touch with the working class.
