In a risky grab for persuadable Republicans, Harris takes on Fox News

Kamala Harris’ appearance Wednesday on Fox News is part of a broader attempt by her campaign to woo independent and persuadable Republican voters in the final weeks of the election, as the vice president strains to rebrand herself from her progressive past to a seasoned and sensible centrist.

A little trolling of Donald Trump doesn’t hurt her either.

In recent weeks, Harris has ventured from rallies and fundraisers to sitting for interviews on liberal and mainstream media outlets, including CNN, CBS’ “60 Minutes” and radio host Charlamagne tha God’s show this week. But she’s shied away from conservative-leaning platforms even as she competes for a slice of Republican voters who are turned off by Trump but aren’t yet prepared to vote for a Democrat.

But now, Harris is reaching out to them. During her truncated run, she has promised to name a Republican to her Cabinet and establish a bipartisan advisory council , campaigned with former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, and bragged about her law enforcement roots.

The vice president gushed to radio host Howard Stern last week how much her “whole family” loves watching Formula 1 . She’s boasted about owning a Glock (“yes, of course” she’s fired it) — and blithely told Oprah Winfrey: “If someone breaks in my house, they’re getting shot.”

Some of those could be signals her campaign hopes will masculinize the vice president, who is struggling to gain support from male voters, polls show. But they also represent an attempt to change the image her opponents have painted of her as a “San Francisco liberal” in an effort to win over independents and Republicans.

Trump is leading Harris among independent voters in Arizona , and the candidates are effectively tied among independents in Pennsylvania , according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released Saturday. Among all likely voters, the two were effectively tied in Pennsylvania, while Trump leads Harris in Arizona, the poll found. Nationally, 9 percent of Republicans said they would support Harris, found another New York Times/Siena College poll released Oct. 8, up from 5 percent the month before.

“I think that a lot of it is about a changing map. We have seen that develop over recent days and swing states are tight and we've seen that trending to the former president and I think that there is an outreach for men, maybe Nikki Haley voters, maybe suburban white voters,” Fox anchor Bret Baier, who is interviewing Harris for his show “Special Report,” said earlier Wednesday on his network. “She’s doing an event outside Philadelphia with disaffected Republicans who are now coming to her side. I think she's trying to reach out to that audience.”

“I’ve been talking to the campaign for a long time trying to do an interview, trying to do a debate, trying to do a town hall,” Baier added, “and this is what they chose, today.”

Fox is the most-watched network on cable , and a majority of Republicans rely on it for their political news, according to a 2020 survey by Pew Research Center . Fox viewers skew heavily white and conservative, Pew found.

The interview with Baier — which was taped earlier in the day in Pennsylvania and aired at 6 p.m. Eastern — is a risk for Harris, who has historically been reluctant to speak with the press. Although the vice president has recently started a media blitz everywhere from ABC’s “The View” to the hit podcast “Call Her Daddy,” hosts have typically been sympathetic to Harris, who tends to stick to rigid talking points.

With Baier, Harris had to answer hard questions, getting to the root of conservatives’ biggest concerns, including her handling of the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.

And her team is betting that her answers to those difficult questions will persuade swing voters to give her a chance.

“We're at a stage in this campaign where we're trying to reach every voter where they are and through whatever means of information and communication connects with them,” said Sen. Chris Coons, a Harris campaign co-chair. “And on Fox, the viewers pretty much only hear from a Democrat or from a Democrat’s perspective in their world when they hear it directly on Fox.”

That’s part of a broader strategy to pull from the middle in the final sprint toward Election Day. Earlier this week, Harris’ campaign started airing an ad in Arizona featuring an endorsement from the Republican Mayor of Mesa, John Giles. The campaign has run similar ads in Pennsylvania featuring lifelong Republicans saying “Jan. 6 was a wake-up call.”

Harris has raked in endorsements from several prominent Republicans, including Cheney; her father, Dick Cheney, who served as vice president under George W. Bush; and former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who famously feuded with Trump when he served in Congress.

Ahead of her interview with Baier on Wednesday, Harris rallied in the Philadelphia suburbs with more than 100 former GOP officials, making a hard sell to voters in the state where Republican former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley won nearly 17 percent of the primary vote.

“In a typical election year, you all being here with me might be a bit surprising, dare I say unusual,” Harris said. “Not in this election, because at stake in this race are the democratic ideals that our founders and generations of Americans before us have fought for. At stake in this election is the Constitution of the United States, its very self. We are here today because we share a core belief that we must put country before party.”

Greta Reich and Kelly Garrity contributed to this report.