Kamala Harris has now passed the first three tests of her stormy presidential campaign.
The first challenge was to gain support for her nomination after Joe Biden decided to withdraw his candidacy for re-election last month. Harris and her supporters did this with lightning speed, avoiding a contested convention that would have provided plenty of political theater but potentially damaged the prospects of whoever would emerge as the Democratic Party’s nominee.
The second challenge was to choose, again on a very tight timeline, a vice president who would complement her well while quickly winning over the American people. Tim Walz ticked almost all the boxes: he was raised in a rural area, had a military background, was a white man, was a former high school football coach, was a former congressman, and is now a governor in a part of the country that will play a big role in deciding the outcome in November. Walz had the added bonus of being the first to call candidate Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance “just weird” – a label that has stuck with the Republican duo so far.
The third test came on Thursday, when Harris delivered her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Harris has faced some criticism in the past for talking earnestly but saying nothing. That was not the case with her speech at the convention.
She came across as tough but compassionate, earnest and sincere and personable. Don’t underestimate the power of personability in politics. Some voters want to know about a candidate’s values. Some want to know about a candidate’s ideology and policy priorities. Some just want to know if this is the person they want to have as a neighbor or over for dinner. Unlike the often dour Trump, who tells us the country is going to the dogs, Harris offers joy and optimism.
Of course, her speech was probably largely written by others, as is common with people in high office or those aspiring to it. But she had to deliver the speech, and she did it effectively. And her remarks were kept to a reasonable length, at 38 minutes—almost a full hour shorter than the rambling 92-minute acceptance speech Trump gave at the Republican National Convention in July that left many people at home asleep.
It would be no surprise if Harris were to gain significantly in the polls after this energetic and well-organized convention – just as Trump’s supporters were motivated after the gathering, which united Republicans even more strongly behind their candidate, who had survived an assassination attempt just days earlier.
But that lead for Harris will pass, as it did for Trump. And the voters in the middle who will decide this election in about a half-dozen swing states could still go either way.
Pressure will mount on Harris to flesh out her agenda and explain how she has softened some of her previous, strongly liberal positions. She is carrying the economic burden of the Biden administration, which, for all its good jobs and stock market numbers, is still associated with the high inflation that characterized the Democrats’ first three years in office. And then there is the intense unease among moderates about Harris’s staunch support for restoring abortion rights nationwide. They may find Trump distasteful, but they don’t want to turn back the clock to a time when abortion on demand was guaranteed everywhere.
For Harris, the tests are not over yet. The next big test is just a few weeks away, when she faces Donald Trump in what may be her only debate. Harris is only in this position because her performance in the debate dashed Biden’s hopes of re-election. She cannot afford a similar disaster.
