It’s officially been eight months since Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election to now-President Donald Trump, and the campaign retrospectives are already hitting the presses.
On Tuesday, Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf released “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,” detailing the 2024 presidential campaign and perceived missteps by Harris and her team that led to Trump’s win in November. The book details confidential memos, obtained by Politico and published in Tuesday morning’s “Politico Playbook,” written by Democratic strategist Maria Comella to Harris’ campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon.
Within the memos is a surprising sports media tie-in. Written in the final weeks of the campaign, Comella warned O’Malley Dillon that the current Harris strategy was not working and that the Democratic nominee should alter her media strategy to get herself in front of different groups of voters.
One name specifically mentioned by Comella was The Ringer founder Bill Simmons. Simmons, of course, hosts one of the most-popular sports podcasts in the country. He’s also historically been friendly with the Democratic party, having hosted former President Barack Obama on his show while he was still in office.
Simmons’ show isn’t inherently political and rarely strays that way, but that’s exactly the type of interview the Harris team believed their candidate should’ve been looking for. The memo includes suggestions like “consider a male moderator as a contrast so it doesn’t feel and look too much like ‘girl talk.'”
Comella wasn’t the only Democratic operative pushing for Harris to appear on these platforms. In September, Harris ally Bakari Sellers was urging the nominee to appear on shows like Simmons’ and Paul Finebaum’s.
Of course, even if Harris wanted to appear on The Bill Simmons Podcast, it’s unclear whether he would’ve agreed to have her on. In an interview with Semafor one month after the election, Harris’ deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty acknowledged the difficulty the Harris campaign faced getting her booked on mainstream sports programs. “It got more complicated for sports personalities to take us on their shows because they didn’t want to ‘do politics,'” he suggested.
In today’s political climate, there is likely little to gain for the most popular sports hosts by having on political figures. Doing so guarantees angering a portion of your audience, so why bother?
That’s why it’s easier said than done when a strategist like Comella suggests something like this. There’s little upside for a sports personality to get political, unless it’s part of his or her brand. And seeing that politics isn’t a big part of the Simmons brand, especially in 2024, maybe that particular recommendation from Comella was a bit shortsighted.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.