Kamala Harris has helped America see joy and now she needs to make America see a president.
Her speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night will represent her most exacting test yet in a dizzying month that rocketed her to the threshold of an historic presidency that could reshape American politics.
The vice president will offer the country a new beginning and a chance to move to a different place — beyond the prolonged funk brewed by years of Donald Trump’s dark rhetoric and public exhaustion after a once-in-a-century pandemic and consequent and punishing high prices.
More broadly, she’s proposing to restore the elusive lightness and optimism to American life and to reclaim the concept of “freedom” from conservatives, encompassing everything from reproductive rights to new economic relief for the working and middle classes, to access to health care and safety from mass shootings.
“In this election, we each face a question. And that question is, what kind of country do we want to live in?” Harris said at a packed rally in Milwaukee on Tuesday night as the convention partied in Chicago. “Do we want to live in a country of chaos, fear, and hate? Or a country of freedom, compassion, and rule of law?”
Her party is calling on Harris to ascend to the next level of the political stratosphere after advanced age ended President Joe Biden’s reelection bid.
No modern presidential nominee of any major party has faced such a tough assignment in so short a time.
She is the last obstacle to Trump’s return to power after he defied four criminal indictments, one conviction, and crushed his primary rivals as he eyes the most stunning presidential comeback in more than a century.
But Harris’ vice presidential pick, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, told the country on Wednesday night that she could “turn the page on Donald Trump” – in his plain speaking midwestern way that the campaign believes can appeal to White men in the heartland who may tire of the MAGA creed.
“Kamala Harris is tough. Kamala Harris is experienced. And Kamala Harris is ready,” Walz roared.
And in another message to independent and undecided Americans, talk show icon and actress Oprah Winfrey led a parade of entertainers and stars in reinforcing a message that has resonated throughout this convention.
“Let us choose common sense over nonsense, because that’s the best of America,” Winfrey said. “Let us choose the sweet promise of tomorrow over the bitter return to yesterday. We won’t go back. We won’t be set back, pushed back, bullied back, kicked back. We are not going back.”
Most presidential nominees spent years on the campaign trail honing their politics and rhetorical appeals. Harris has been forced to build her campaign on the fly.
— She must establish herself in the eyes of voters as a credible potential commander in chief. She has a lot of gaps to fill in. While she’s been a loyal supporter of Biden’s national security approach, how she’d deal with China, Russia, the war in Ukraine and Iran is largely a mystery.
— Harris’ best bet to beat Trump is to offer herself as the agent of change that voters have told pollsters for many months that they want. It’s tough because she’s a key member of an unpopular administration. But in her most striking effort to separate herself from Biden, Harris has tried to take the party in a sharply populist direction, vowing to cut down on price gouging by supermarket giants. She’s likely to highlight this on Thursday to signal to voters she’s meeting them where they are. Former President Bill Clinton encapsulated this strategy in his convention speech Wednesday. “Every four years … people come up to candidates … and they say … ‘Now, here are our problems, solve them. Here are our opportunities, seize them. Here are our fears, ease them. Here are our dreams, help them come true.’”
— Harris’ uneven performance as vice president raised doubts about her capacity to ascend to the top job. Her strong debut heading the new presidential ticket has eased some of these Democratic fears. But her capacity to survive the searing examination to come is still a question. Trump is trying to portray her as an extreme liberal outside the mainstream of American politics. Everything Harris says Thursday will be an attempt to neutralize attacks on her record on immigration, on her character and her fitness to lead in a restive world. An even bigger test looms with her debate against Trump on September 10.
— The first month of the Harris campaign has unfolded in a surreal bubble as the Democratic Party has suddenly jumped back to life. But observers will be looking for evidence in her speech that she can turn the joy she’s conjured so far into a viable campaign machine to win millions of votes.
— Harris must also disqualify Trump in the minds of enough voters to build her own majority. She’s been less explicit than Biden as framing this election as a battle for “the soul of the nation,” as key party leaders have shifted from warning about Trump’s existential threat to mocking and belittling him. But Harris is warning that a second Trump term could change the country beyond recognition. “This is not 2016 or 2020. And in particular, the stakes are higher for a lot of reasons, because we know what he does when he’s in office.”
Ultimately, Harris must make Americans feel comfortable with the idea of her being president.
In the most intimate portrait of the potential next commander in chief, second gentleman Douglas Emhoff sought to endear her to Americans with details of their romance.
“She will lead with joy and toughness, with that laugh and that look, with compassion and conviction. She’ll lead from the belief that wherever we come from, whatever we look like, we’re strongest when we fight for what we believe in, not just against what we fear,” Emhoff said Tuesday night. “Kamala Harris was exactly the right person for me at an important moment in my life, and at this moment in our nation’s history, she is exactly the right president.”
Although, she’s been vice president for four years, Harris remains unknown to many Americans. A recent CBS News poll found that only 64% of Americans knew what she stands for, compared to 86% who said the same of Trump.
This is an opportunity for the vice president to present a new voice to the country. But it also explains the need for her to define herself before Trump does it for her.
She’ll never have a better chance.
While she has been deeply loyal to Biden, her vice presidency has not been brimming with successes — one reason why there was little pressure on the president to step aside at the beginning of this cycle.
But now, a nominee who has never won a single vote for the presidency (her primary campaign ahead of the 2020 race folded long before the Iowa caucuses) is being asked to conjure victory in a snap election of the highest of stakes.
When politicians secure a party nomination, they must prepare themselves to assume the even greater burdens of the presidency. In Harris’ case, it’s not a total leap into the unknown since she was on the ballot as vice president in 2020 and has been a heartbeat away from the top job ever since.
The vice president’s deftness as her boss tried to hold on as the nominee and then bowed to his party’s desperation for him to step aside has gilded her reputation. It’s raised the possibility that a crisis nurtured the next Democratic Party giant.
But she’s not alone. Former Democratic presidents, first ladies and members of Harris’ inner circle and family have this week united behind her in a stunning shift in a party that was in disarray after Biden’s disastrous debate with Trump.
Biden poignantly handed Harris his legacy and the hopes of his party before flying off into lame duck status after his address to the convention on Monday night.
But now only Harris can convince voters that she can be the 47th president.
Harris would be the first Black woman and Indian American President. All week, the Democratic Party’s elders have highlighted her heritage, middle class upbringing and journey from a job flipping burgers at McDonald’s to putting violent criminals behind bars as California’s attorney general. They’ve argued that her rise to the vice presidency from humble roots epitomizes a life of service that makes her fit to lead the nation.
That diverse biography may be the key to reassembling the kind of Democratic coalition rooted in women, minority and suburban voters that could lead Harris to the Oval Office.
When Democrats arrived in Chicago, they were buzzing with euphoria after Harris and Walz delighted huge crowds at swing state rallies that left Trump grappling for traction — and suddenly saddled, at 78, with the unwelcome reality of being the old candidate in the race.
But as the days passed, the reality of this year’s still-close election has started to intrude. It’s been fueled by warnings from the Democrats who know best what it takes to win power — former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — that this election is nowhere near done and that the joy of recent weeks is just a starting point.
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