How Harris balances competing messages as VP and candidate

WASHINGTON (AP) — She’s the sitting vice president who has been in office for 3 1/2 years. She’s also the presidential candidate of just five weeks promising a “new way forward.”

Kamala Harris is having it both ways as she hits the campaign trail after the Democratic National Convention, taking credit for parts of President Joe Biden’s record in rallies staged in front of Air Force Two while casting herself as a new leader who rails against “the politics of the past.”

In every presidential cycle candidates run on experience or freshness, but Harris so far appears to be successfully harmonizing two seemingly competing messages, much to the frustration of former President Donald Trump and his allies.

“She has this powerful and unique and interesting advantage that we have never seen before in our politics,” said Patrick Gaspard, CEO of the Democratic-leaning think tank Center for American Progress Action Fund and a former executive director of the Democratic National Committee under President Barack Obama.

“She is both an incumbent,” he said, and “she’s been able to seize the ‘change’ banner away from Donald Trump.”

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