Harris tries out new ways of reaching voters, but she’s running out of time

Inside a small community theater in suburban Detroit, Vice President Kamala Harris was asked at a recent forum to talk about her life for the benefit of voters who are still getting to know her.

It was the type of question typically asked of a new candidate. But here was Harris getting it less than two weeks before the Nov. 5 election and after millions of people already had voted. Her response underscored perhaps the defining challenge of her campaign for the White House.

“How much time do we have?” Harris quipped.

The fact is, not much.

Any candidate’s most valuable resource is time, and from the start, Harris has been historically constrained. The Democratic nominee has been running for only three months after Democratic President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, and Harris still is confronting voters who say they want to learn more about who she is or how she will govern.

Her public events have tended toward large rallieswhere crowds ride high on vibes and Harris delivers variations on her standard stump speech. In the past week or so, though, she has added events in more intimate settings, lower-key church services and black box theater sit-downs where the conversations can be more revealing.