Whether you see Kamala Harris as a deep state puppet or the savior of the Democratic party, you can’t deny that her PR team has been working overtime. 

In the weeks since her ascension to the position of Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has managed to convert Biden’s 3.2 point polling deficit as of July 21 to a lead of 2.7 points as of Sept. 10, according to a poll by FiveThirtyEight. While polls may not always be precise (even Pew Research has admitted to their shortcomings), they can still be good ways to spot momentum. Even conservatives have to acknowledge the Harris campaign got a few things right. 

Kevin Madden, former senior adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaign and current CNN commentator, talked about the need for careful management of a campaign’s public image.

“The goal is to control the narrative as much as possible,” Madden said. 

This common, bipartisan political strategy has become a core aspect of the Harris campaign. Independent news group America Uncovered pointed out that she has only had a single media interview since her assumption of the role of Democratic presidential nominee, whereas Trump has had four in that time. Harris is better able to protect her fragile image and control the narrative by limiting her media exposure. 

In the meantime, Harris has consistently discussed vague optimistic talking points, proclaiming herself a “new way forward.” After having dealt with months of walking back Biden’s statements, it seems the Democratic party has learned to make indefinite promises. Interestingly, Harris’s slate of undefined political promises has become a feature rather than a bug of her party’s electoral machinery.

Anthony Zurcher, a writer for the BBC, described the strategy in his BBC article titled, “Kamala Harris [sic] campaign is light on policy – but that’s helped her transform the race.”

“By largely being an empty policy vessel, Ms. Harris has allowed various constituencies within the Democratic Party to project their hopes and priorities onto her,” Zurcher writes. 

Whether that’s a compliment or an insult, it’s working. By limiting Harris’s public discourse, her campaign has turned her into the perfect catch-all to galvanize unrelated and often contrary political groups.

Unfortunately for her hopeful support base, Harris’s campaign has been a classic lesson in rebranding an old product rather than selling a new one. 

In Harris’s one interview with CNN’s Dana Bash last month, she affirmed her intent to uphold many of Biden’s policies — ironically often themselves watered down adaptations of Trump’s policies — including those related to economics, Israeli-Palestinian relations, border policy, and the continuation of fracking. The New York Times went so far as to call Harris a “better salesperson for Mr. Biden’s accomplishments and defender of his record than he ever was.” How this reverence for the president’s widely reviled and divisive policies will mesh with a united “new way forward” is still open to question. 

This incongruity between perception and policy should come as a wake-up call to voters across the political spectrum to cast aside informational complacency in their consumption of news. We cannot allow ourselves to be swayed by superficial campaigns of “Joy” or other diversionary strategies. We must instead commit to rigorously questioning our leaders, no matter how much we despise the opposition or wish for our own candidate’s victory. 

If we do not seek to expose a politician’s nature before casting our vote, we will have imprisoned ourselves voluntarily to their true intentions when they no longer need our support. Leaders ought to be held accountable before and after votes are cast. Hopefully, the PR teams get paid overtime before we wash their hard work away.

James Joski is a freshman studying the liberal arts.