California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday night defended Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign strategy – which has been criticized for being light on policy – insisting she will have ‘time to articulate nuances’ later.
‘She’ll have more … detail, and I believe that will start on Thursday night,’ Newsom told Fox News’ Peter Doocy in Chicago Tuesday evening. Harris is slated to give her only formal address to the convention on Thursday, the final night of the convention.
Newsom has come to defend Harris’ campaign strategy, responding to detractors who have criticized her for an approach that appears to be lacking in any real, substantive policy details. Harris’ campaign website still contains no policy section, and as a candidate, she has yet to sit for any interviews or hold a press conference. Additionally, until last Friday, Harris had not released any formal policy positions since entering the race in mid-July, when she unveiled her economic agenda.
Meanwhile, four years ago, when then-Vice President Joe Biden was running for office, he tasked an entire group of advisers with generating a 110-page policy document, according to The New York Times. It was the same with Hillary Clinton in 2016, the Times also pointed out, which noted that she had more than 200 distinct policy proposals on record during her campaign. Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has outlined his policy platform in a lengthy, 20-point document, covering a wide range of topics.
‘What kind of substantive campaign is Harris intending to run?’ Washington Post columnist Matt Bai asked last week. ‘Or does she really need substance at all?’
On Monday, the DNC released its policy platform after having to republish it following Biden’s decision to drop out of the race. The platform mentions Biden’s name 287 times and until it was corrected, had a reference to Biden’s ‘second term,’ suggesting Harris’ supposedly forthcoming policy positions may not differ dramatically from the last administration. However, her economic policies unveiled last week, which include price control measures for the food and grocery store industry, suggested a Harris-Walz administration could potentially be far more progressive than the Biden-Harris administration.
Harris is set to accept the Democratic nomination on Thursday.