The Kamala Harris Show is taking the spotlight off Donald Trump for now but can she last the course?
Suddenly it is the Kamala Harris show, with a re-energised and unified Democratic Party rushing to support her in the belief it is back in the game with a chance of defeating Donald Trump.
An astonishing avalanche of support for Harris, from congress Democrats, governors, donors and special interest groups, has seen the Vice-President effectively wrap up her party’s nomination just 24 hours after Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race.
All speculation about whether the Democrats would have an open contest between candidates proved to be moot because every serious potential challenger has endorsed Harris already.
No one has come forward to challenge her and, with all the big potential contenders such as Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer and Pete Buttigieg endorsing her, there are no potential challengers left who would have the name recognition needed to pose a serious threat to Harris.
This is a bonus for the Democrats because they suddenly have a consensus candidate and will not have to oversee a rapid-fire contest that could have highlighted divisions within the party.
You can sense among liberal Americans genuine excitement about the remarkable turn of events from which they suddenly have a fully functioning, fresh-faced 59-year-old candidate leading their ticket rather than an 81-year-old in visible decline.
The glowing endorsement of Harris by party elder Nancy Pelosi 24 hours after Biden’s decision confirmed the Democrats have embraced her as their last, best hope against Trump.
It is as if the Democrats, after their historic misjudgment all year about Biden’s cognitive decline, are so relieved to actually have a viable candidate that they’re rushing to coronate her, flaws and all.
For now optimism rules as the party embraces Harris’s 2024 campaign and skates over the less flattering parts of her record, such as her failed 2020 presidential nomination bid.
What this campaign looks like is still a work in progress. Harris will inherit Biden’s campaign staff and all his funding, which is a good starting point given she has so little time before the November 5 election. But Americans know little about her policy positions on a vast range of issues.
While Harris was required as Vice-President to support Biden’s agenda, we don’t yet know whether she will deviate from this on the campaign trail. It is likely she will focus more heavily than Biden did on abortion rights, an issue that has been her greatest strength as Vice-President.
The excitement that has greeted her candidacy is likely to see a short-term “honeymoon” rise in her polling against Trump. But this won’t be sustained unless Harris can quickly develop a compelling stump speech to tell Americans what she stands for and why she would be the better candidate.
Harris’s sudden emergence has clearly frustrated Trump, who has complained he has to “start all over again” after having perfected his stump speech against the President.
Trump shows signs of being unsettled by her sudden candidacy. He has not yet perfected an effective attack against her, in the way he has with previous opponents. He calls her ‘‘laughing Kamala”, and says she is “crazy” and “nuts”, but will need more effective criticism than name-calling.
Bizarrely, the first thing Trump did on Monday (US time) was attack Biden rather than Harris, saying: “It’s a new day and Joe Biden doesn’t remember quitting the race yesterday!”
The early signs are that Trump will seek to portray Harris as a policy clone of Biden who therefore deserves the blame for what has gone wrong with his presidency.
But it will take some time for Trump to work out how best to attack Harris. In the meantime, Democrats have a spring in their step again as they realise they have been given an unexpected second chance to defeat Trump when all looked lost.
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