Kamala Harris is targeting black voters to regain momentum against Donald Trump

Kamala Harris is stepping up her media appearances with direct appeals to black voters and other groups as she fights to take on Donald Trump with just three weeks left in the race for the White House.

On Tuesday, Harris was interviewed by Charlamagne tha God, a radio host whose syndicated show is popular among young black Americans. On Wednesday, Harris will sit down with Fox News host Bret Baier in her first appearance on Rupert Murdoch's conservative cable network to reach out to centrists and anti-Trump Republicans.

The media campaign – which could include an upcoming interview on Joe Rogan's controversial podcast – is an attempt by Harris to reach a wider range of voters as leading Democrats fear she is losing momentum to Trump.

“This effort is aimed at people who have not yet decided whether to vote or who to vote for, and those are the people who matter,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of Third Way, the centrist Democratic think tank.

“It’s definitely risky, but I think it’s smart,” Bennett added. “Charlamagne is risky. Bret Baier is risky. But at this stage it is important to take risks. She can’t run like she’s ahead because she’s not.”

Harris has been criticized, including by Democrats, for being overly publicized. She defended her tactics to Charlamagne on Tuesday, saying, “That's what you would call discipline.”

“This is a race with margin of error,” she said. “I’ll win, but it’s close.”

Harris also said she must “earn every vote” and laid out policies to help Black Americans in particular, including more support for small businesses and first-time home buyers. She also reiterated her plan to decriminalize marijuana and said there is “no question” that demands for reparations for descendants of slaves should be considered.

Reuters previously reported that Harris' campaign also spoke with Rogan about appearing on his podcast, which has wide reach among younger men. A spokesman for Spotify, which distributes Rogan's podcast, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The latest media push follows interviews on CBS' flagship magazine show last week 60 minutesHoward Stern's radio program and Call her dadthe sex and dating podcast popular with younger women.

With just three weeks left until the November vote, Harris has few options left to swing the presidential race, especially since Trump has declined invitations to a second debate with her.

“With no big moments left on the agenda, the Harris campaign needs to capture the attention of voters who don’t engage with political news,” Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to then-President Barack Obama, wrote on Substack.

A Financial Times poll tracker shows Harris leading Trump by 2.6 percentage points nationally, but almost dead in crucial swing states. A recent NBC News poll showed her popularity had declined over the past month.

“The theme of the past week has been that sentiment appears to be getting worse for Kamala Harris and better for Donald Trump,” nonpartisan analyst Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia Center for Politics wrote Tuesday.

Poll numbers were also slightly better for Trump last week, Kondik said, as voters rated the former president on issues such as the economy and immigration and overlooked his often polarizing rhetoric.

Harris is making more swing-state appearances after senior Democrats, including Obama's chief campaign strategist David Axelrod, suggested she was spending too much time in meetings and not enough time traveling.

The Democratic nominee will hold nearly a dozen campaign events in four swing states this week.

At a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday, she introduced a new line of attack against Trump, addressing his comments that he would mobilize the military against the “enemy from within.”

“We have some sick people, radical left-wing lunatics,” Trump told Fox News on Sunday. “And it should be able to be handled very easily by the National Guard if necessary or by the military if it is really necessary.”

Harris said: “This is one of the reasons I believe so strongly that a second Trump term would be a great risk to America and dangerous.”

A senior Harris campaign official said the vice president would reiterate that message during a stop in the Philadelphia suburbs on Wednesday.

In an effort to drum up centrist and Republican support, the official said the Democratic nominee will “emphasize the importance of patriotism and upholding the Constitution in a bipartisan call to put country above party in this election.”

Harris has so far shied away from focusing on Trump's rhetoric. But allies said it also needs to step up those attacks.

“A few months ago she had to reintroduce herself to the public. . . Now we’re in the contrast phase,” said Third Way’s Bennett. “The most important contrast is: Do you believe in American democracy or not?”

Additional reporting by Anna Nicolaou in New York