But most of the questions during this tri-state town hall visit seemed tailor-made for Harris to promote her campaign’s main talking points.
A young mother in Pennsylvania asked how she could care for her elderly mother who had dementia.
Harris outlined plans for government-funded home care. In Michigan, there were questions about Ukraine, and both Cheney and Harris warned that a Trump victory would put Vladimir Putin “sitting in Kiev.”
The isolationist approach to war adopted by Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, has won favor among Americans who think the billions of dollars spent supporting Ukraine after the Russian invasion would be better spent at home.
Every stop on the Harris-Cheney day tour included questions about abortion and reproductive rights, allowing Cheney, who opposes abortion, to say that Republican states that ban abortion are going too far.
Current opinion polls show a close race for the presidency across the country, with a fierce race in the battleground blue wall.
In 2016, Donald Trump flipped three traditionally Democratic “Rust Belt” states that were the heart of U.S. manufacturing, but Joe Biden won them again four years later.
Most polls now show that less than 10% of Republicans support Democrats.
If that number turns out to be an underestimate, if Cheney is right and there are some shy Republicans who will ultimately break the ranks and vote for Democrats, Harris’ path to the White House will be much easier.
At the very least, the Harris campaign decided that the opportunity to chip away at what may be weak support for Trump was worth a day’s effort.
