Meet the Interviewer: CNN’s Dana Bash

For the second time in barely two months, the CNN anchor Dana Bash is playing a pivotal role in the 2024 presidential race.

Ms. Bash, 53, conducted Thursday’s joint interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, early Thursday afternoon. The interview, taped in Savannah, Ga., and set to air on Thursday evening, is Ms. Harris’s first major unscripted moment since she succeeded President Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.

In June, Ms. Bash was a moderator, along with Jake Tapper, of a prime-time debate between Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Biden’s poor performance that evening led directly to his withdrawal from the race.

How Ms. Bash handles Thursday’s interview may play an outsize role in shaping voters’ perception of Ms. Harris, who is still in the midst of introducing herself to the broader public.

Ms. Bash, who is CNN’s chief political correspondent and the anchor of its weekday show “Inside Politics,” has spent her entire career at the network. She started as a producer after college, and rose to become the channel’s lead White House and congressional correspondent. She has reported on presidential elections since 2000.

Among her high-profile interviews was an August meeting with Mr. Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio. She moderated a town hall with Mike Pence, the former vice president, last year in Iowa.

Unlike some of her more boisterous colleagues, Ms. Bash projects a reserved on-air presence, and she has rarely been drawn into the partisan brickbats of the candidates she covers. She has shown a knack for delivering pithy and incisive analyses of big political events in the minutes after they unfold.

Ms. Bash also hosts a CNN series