SAVANNAH, Georgia (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, will sit down for their first major television interview of their presidential campaign on Thursday as the duo travels through southeast Georgia on a bus tour.

The interview with Dana Bash from CNN gives Harris the chance Suppress criticism that she avoids uncontrolled environments while giving her a new platform to define her campaign and test her political mettle ahead of a debate with former President Donald Trump scheduled for Sept. 10. But it also comes with risks as her team tries to build on the momentum of the reshuffle following Joe Biden’s exit and last week’s Democratic National Convention.

Joint interviews during an election year are a staple in politics; Biden and Harris, Trump and Mike Pence, Barack Obama and Biden – all gave them at a similar point in the race. The difference is that these other candidates have all given individual interviews as well. Harris has yet to give an in-depth interview since becoming her party’s standard-bearer five weeks ago, although she did give several interviews when she was still Biden’s running mate.

Harris and Walz are still introducing themselves to voters, unlike Trump and Biden, who almost everyone knew about and had an opinion about.

The CNN interview is scheduled to air at 9 p.m. EDT. It is scheduled to be recorded at 1:45 p.m. EDT during her two-day bus tour of southeast Georgia, culminating with an evening rally in Savannah. Harris campaign officials believe that to win the state, Trump In November, she must gain a foothold in Republican strongholds across the state.

Harris has given on-camera and print interviews to the Associated Press and many other media outlets during her time as vice president, far more frequently than the president – with the exception of Biden’s late-stage media offensive following his disastrous debate performance that marked the end of his campaign.

Harris’ lack of access to the media over the past month has become one of Republicans’ main lines of attack. The Trump campaign has kept a precise count of the days she has gone as a candidate without giving an interview. On Wednesday, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s former press secretary, suggested Harris needed a “babysitter” and that’s why Walz would be there.

“You know Kamala Harris can’t get through an interview on her own. There’s not a lot of confidence in someone who can take the leadership role of the free world and ask people to make her president of the United States when she’s not even able to sit down for an interview,” she said on “Fox & Friends.”

Trump, on the other hand, has relied primarily on conservative media for his interviews, but has held more open press conferences in recent weeks to regain the spotlight that Harris’ rise brought him.

After the CNN interview, Walz will leave and Harris will continue the bus trip alone and drive to a rally before returning to Washington. On Wednesday, they spent time with a high school marching band and stopped at a barbecue restaurant in Savannah, much to the delight of the students.

Michael Tyler, communications director for Harris’ campaign, said bus trips provide an “opportunity to get to places we don’t normally go (and) make sure we’re competing in all communities.”

The campaign’s goal is to use the events to galvanize voters in Republican-leaning areas who traditionally don’t see the candidates. It also hopes that the events will create viral moments that will gain mass media coverage and reach voters across the country.

The stops are intended as an opportunity to give voters the chance to “learn not only what they stand for, but who they are as people,” Tyler said.

Harris is conducting another blitz with Biden in Detroit and Pittsburgh on Labor Day, even though the election is just over 70 days away. The first mail-in ballots will be sent to voters in just two weeks.

Democrats’ enthusiasm for their November election has skyrocketed in recent months, Gallup pollAbout 8 in 10 Democrats now say they are more enthusiastic about voting than usual, compared with 55% in March.

This gives them an enthusiasm advantage they did not have earlier in the year. Among Republicans, enthusiasm has risen much less over the same period, and about two-thirds of Republicans now say they are more enthusiastic about the election than usual.

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Long reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.