CNN

Vice President Kamala Harris faces the next test in her presidential bid on Thursday with her first unscripted interview with a major media outlet since becoming the Democratic nominee.

Harris will be hoping to extend the momentum she’s conjured at the start of her campaign – and to avoid the types of unforced errors that plagued her first presidential bid in 2019, as well as her early days as vice president. It’s also a chance for the newly anointed candidate to heighten a contrast with Republican nominee Donald Trump, to connect with undecided voters and to highlight her credentials to lead in the Oval Office at a tense time for the United States at home and abroad.

Harris will appear alongside her vice presidential pick, Tim Walz, in a CNN primetime special airing at 9 p.m. ET from Georgia, where she is on a bus tour designed to put a swing state the GOP thought it was close to securing in November back on the board. The interview is the most important chapter of the campaign between last week’s Democratic convention in Chicago and the presidential debate set for Philadelphia on September 10.