Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at this week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago with a slim lead over former President Trump in national polling averages that few would have thought likely even a month ago.
The truncated nature of the race — initially seen by many as an additional obstacle — has played to Harris's strengths while downplaying her flaws.
The Nov. 5 election will be held just 75 days after the convention ends Thursday. Voting begins even earlier in many states, including the prized battleground state of Pennsylvania, where some counties will begin handing out ballots next month.
Before President Biden dropped out of the race in July, many Democrats viewed Harris as a risky candidate, though they also worried that anyone taking her place on the ticket would face logistical challenges.
Here's why early voting, unprecedented in modern American politics, has been helpful to Harris so far — and how Trump could take back a race that's still up for grabs:
There is no primary, there is no problem in defining fundamental beliefs
Harris began her campaign for her party’s nomination in 2020 with the same enthusiasm she is generating among Democratic voters today. More than 20,000 people turned out for her announcement event in January 2019 in Oakland, and she raised a lot of money while establishing herself as a top-tier contender.
By December of that year, before any votes were cast or caucuses were held, Harris had dropped out of the race. Harris struggled to define her core beliefs compared to those of others in a large field of Democratic hopefuls. As a result, voters had no clear idea of what she stood for.
Was she a leftist competing for progressive populist votes with Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts? Was she a centrist competing with Biden and Pete Buttigieg, who is now Biden’s transportation secretary?
“It’s not necessarily easy to categorize her as a progressive, centrist or moderate,” said Brian Brokaw, a former Harris adviser who led a group supporting her in the primary. “She’s thrown people off.”
His attempts to bridge the party's ideological divides — with his own plan for universal health care and a partial embrace of the movement to reform or abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement — failed to win over his party.
She doesn't have to worry about those fights now that the race is a binary choice, with clearer lines between her and Trump on issues like abortion, democracy and the economy.
“She is benefiting so much from being an opponent against Trump, in a particularly compelling and positive way, that everyone sees her differently,” said Faiz Shakir, a senior adviser to Sanders.
“In a primary process, voters would be asking themselves: ‘Could she be the candidate? Should she be the candidate? Is she the best?’” Shakir added. “Here, you’re either for Trump or Harris.”
Less need for an 'Etch-A-Sketch'
Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign was significantly undermined when a top adviser said the Republican might erase some of the conservative positions he championed in the Republican primaries with an “Etch-A-Sketch” to appeal to a more moderate electorate in the general election.
Harris is doing some of that now, moving away from her four-year-old support for universal health care and a fracking ban as she tries to win votes in Pennsylvania and other key states. Republicans are trying to remind voters of their more liberal stances, but it’s harder than it would be if their shifts were more recent and if Harris didn’t have her Biden administration record to campaign on.
He also faces less pressure from the left in his party than if he had run in the primaries, when interest groups tend to use their influence. For example, he has been supporting Biden’s bipartisan deal on border security, avoiding some of the criticism within the Democratic Party that Biden faced this year when he negotiated it with Senate Republicans. Trump pressured GOP lawmakers to scrap the deal because he wants to keep the border a political issue.
A turnkey operation
Harris inherited Biden’s entire campaign apparatus, avoiding the managerial clashes and staff turnover that hampered her 2020 campaign and early years as vice president.
The campaign was designed around Biden’s strengths and loyalties, which presented a challenge. But the tone quickly shifted to Harris’s style, which is more confrontational but lighter, as she tries to contrast her sense of joy with Trump’s grievances. The campaign was also built around a ground game, in anticipation of a tight race in which turnout among the most loyal voters will be crucial.
Taking Trump by surprise
Trump built his campaign around Biden's weaknesses, including his advanced age. Now, Trump is the candidate facing some of the same questions.
Donald Trump's campaign had not planned to take on Kamala Harris, but he still has a chance.
(Julia Nikhinson/Associated Press)
Trump's advisers believe Harris is an easy target and have urged him to focus his attacks on immigration and the economy, two areas where he has a lead over her in the polls but has so far been unable to avoid distractions.
“I think I have a right to make personal attacks” on Harris, Trump said at a news conference Thursday.
The calendar has kept the honeymoon alive. Can it last?
Harris has been lucky and timed just right. She got a boost of enthusiasm from relieved Democrats when Biden dropped out, and again with the announcement of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, and now she’s entering a convention that will draw media attention, including four nights of network broadcasts.
She has been on tour most of the time, avoiding formal interviews and other unplanned encounters that have caused her problems in the past.
Trump's allies are furious at what they see as an unfair planning path.
“The only thing going for Harris — the only thing — is the relentless stream of coverage she’s getting from the media, which doesn’t seem inclined to question why she won’t answer a single question or explain the radical, leftist record she’s running from,” said Tim Murtaugh, Trump’s 2020 communications director who recently joined his 2024 campaign. “She’s a weak vice president from a failed administration, but the media would rather write about her ‘vibe.’”
Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien said he had doubts Harris’s momentum could continue, arguing that the dust had not yet settled following the Democratic campaign’s change of course. Harris’s perceived advantages could backfire, he argued.
“He’s been offered a honeymoon period, which has certainly given him a little bit of fresh air,” Stepien said. “On the other hand, going through a primary process, facing a slate of opponents, tests you. It tests you on the debate stage. It tests you on the campaign trail. It allows you to fine-tune and refine the message.”
The pressure is still present
Despite Harris's good fortune, polls show the race remains winnable for either candidate — closer than it was eight years ago, when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the electoral college despite losing the popular vote. That gives Trump plenty of room to recover and Harris time to stumble.
Her lack of one-on-one interviews or large-scale news conferences since winning the nomination will raise the stakes when she accepts one — or holds her first debate with Trump — on Sept. 10. She could also suffer a twist in the news, such as a domestic economic setback or a shift in the war between Israel and Hamas.
“There’s no margin for error,” said Karen Finney, a friend of Harris’s who held a senior communications position during Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. “Everyone always gives their all in an election. This time, it’s best to give it your all. There’s no time.”
Finney argues that Harris has more than luck and opportunity: She worked as vice president to build a message and a political coalition that wouldn’t have existed had another Democrat replaced Biden. But if she makes a mistake in a debate, she’ll have less time to recover, Finney said.
“Joe Biden resigned so that we would have the best chance of beating Donald Trump,” he said. “Of course that creates pressure.”
