BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Every Tuesday, Chris Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, sits down with LehighValleyNews.com politics reporter Tom Shortell for Lehigh Valley Political Pulse on WLVR.
They discuss the latest trends emerging from science-based polls to break down local, state and national campaigns and issues.
This week, the two talk about why politicians make public appearances, both alone and with well-known figures.
"It's all about political communications and reaching your audiences, finding your audience where they're at, delivering messages in those venues that resonate with those audiences," Borick said. "And of course, as listeners would know over time, our communication methods have changed and evolved in lots of ways."
He acknowledged that the media and communication landscape has changed over time, like the emergence of podcasts in recent years.
And now, Borick said he thinks political candidates have taken to more non-traditional methods of reaching their audience — albeit potentially risky.
Shortell and Borick discussed how Vice President Kamala Harris recently appeared on a podcast named 'Call Her Daddy,' with Shortell asking Borick why the Democratic presidential candidate would make that appearance even if a percentage of voters might not have known about the podcast beforehand.
"It's about your ability to look at audiences that you think are important to your future as a candidate, and find those venues to look at," Borick said. "As you said, 'Call her Daddy' — until I read about [Harris'] appearance — I didn't know anything about that. It's not a podcast I would regularly go to. But as you said, 'Who's the target audience for that?'"
The two also talked about former President Donald Trump's Sunday appearance at a McDonald's in Bucks County.
"He is the product of his generation, right?" Borick said, later adding the move was likely made in anticipation of news coverage. "He's still TV focused in a lot of ways."
Political Pulse airs throughout the day Tuesdays on 91.3 WLVR. You can listen to an extended version of the conversation here, by clicking the listen button above.
