Kamala Harris' most controversial campaign strategy has a clear explanation.

On Monday, 15 days before Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris toured the contest's three key swing states – Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania – with former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney. The Harris campaign's emphasis on a conservative surrogate whose last name Democrats have long equated with villainy could frustrate some on the left.

Harris and Cheney are among the first to admit they have little in common other than not wanting Donald Trump to be president again. But in their campaign, along with other work Cheney has done for the Harris campaign, they have a very specific mission: to get some of the last remnants of persuaded voters to come over to Harris' side.

According to public polling data and public endorsements from Harris' campaign, the election is extremely close, with Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania particularly on a knife edge. Although the vast majority of the country made up their minds long ago, there are still small pockets of voters in the seven swing states who are undecided about whether to vote for Harris and Trump or whether to vote or not to vote. Specifically, these voters include young men, black men, Hispanic men, suburban women with college degrees, and white women without college degrees. We're talking about groups that make up a percentage point of the electorate here, a point there. Over the last few tumultuous weeks, the Harris campaign has aggressively targeted certain groups with messages specifically tailored to them in an effort to win the last few, likely crucial votes in an otherwise frozen contest.

“Our beliefs and our undecided universe span gender, race, age and education level. But they have one thing in common: They are very difficult to reach,” said Meg Schwenz Feier, chief analytics officer for the Harris campaign, in a statement to Slate. “They don’t look at traditional news platforms or other programming with a large mainstream audience. So to talk to them, we need to take a multi-pronged approach – we need to be on TV, on non-traditional platforms, knocking on doors, on billboards, in digital ads, in the mail – basically everything. We think that's a real advantage over the Trump campaign – we're reaching the last undecided voters wherever they are – in a way that the Trump campaign doesn't have the infrastructure to do.”

Cheney was recruited to help with what the Harris campaign sees as one of the relatively “larger” remaining persuadable blocs. These are Republican, college-educated suburban women (and some men), a group that has moved heavily toward Democrats in the Trump era but that the Harris campaign believes can achieve even more. The most important thing Cheney said at one of those rallies was to give them a sense of what can feel like a transgressive act.

“I certainly have a lot of Republicans who will say to me, 'I can't be public,'” Cheney said Monday. “While they are concerned about a whole range of things, including violence, they will do the right thing. And I just want to remind people: If you’re at all concerned, you can vote your conscience and never have to say a word to anyone.”

The appropriate campaign jargon for what Cheney is doing here is to create a “permission structure” so that Trump-weary Republicans can make the final leap to Harris. Cheney — or, to use another recent headline, John Kelly — serves as a confirmer, reassuring like-minded voters that it's OK to support a Democrat. If Liz Cheney can bring herself to do itin other words, You can do that too.

Will this work? Who knows. It must be? Probably.

While the campaign aims to convince this group of voters to choose Harris over Trump, there is another multifront campaign to convince some to vote for Harris instead of not voting at all.

There is a pronounced gender divide in this election, which is not particularly surprising in a race between a man and a woman, while abortion rights are a key issue in the campaign. Much has been written about the Harris campaign's pandering to black men, Hispanic men and young men in general, a downtrodden cohort without much faith in the political process.

Much of the Democrats' declining vote share among young men and men of color was built into the pie before Harris ever set foot in the race; These tectonic plates shift a little more every four years. However, Harris will still do it win Black men and young men, so it is important that the vote margin loss compared to 2020 is offset by turnout.

The Harris campaign will not reach the men it needs to appeal to with additional appearances The view. To meet them where they are, Harris' team has placed advertisements on sports betting and fantasy sports websites; on video game sites like IGN; and during college football, NBA, NFL and MLB playoff broadcasts. Tim Walz was there The Rich Eisen Show to talk about the Minnesota Vikings. There have been some rumors that Harris might be the granddaddy of all male-focused media activity –The Joe Rogan Experiencethe most popular podcast in the country – although it hasn't come to fruition yet. (However, it appeared on The Howard Stern Show and Charlemagne, the god The Breakfast Clubboth of which have a large male audience.)

Trump, on the other hand will appears on Rogan and appears in a new influencer program aimed at young men seemingly every day. Some Democrats tend to laugh at those silly interviews where Trump asks what cocaine does or what you get in a custom Cybertruck. But they might laugh less if they give Trump the decisive lead.

One could say that the more niche the target groups have, the narrower the choice. There's a good chance your cousin in one of the seven swing states, who doesn't care about any of this but is bombarded with targeted advertising every time he makes his fantasy lineup, could swing the election. The same goes for his mother. Be aware that in these hectic final weeks, if you see something that seems unusual at the end of a campaign — like a day of fun with Liz Cheney — there's probably a lot of campaign research that suggests it's necessary move in the moment.

That doesn't mean it will be like that work.