Kamala Harris has now passed the initial three tests of her whirlwind presidential campaign.
The first test involved lining up the support for her nomination following Joe Biden’s decision last month to end his candidacy for re-election. Harris and her supporters did so with lightning speed, avoiding a contested convention that might have made for great political theater but possibly damaged the prospects for whomever emerged from it with the Democratic Party’s nomination.
The second test came in selecting, again in a severely compressed timetable, a vice president who would make a good complement to her and also be able to quickly win over the American people. Tim Walz checked most all of the boxes — rural upbringing, military background, white male, former high school football coach, former congressman and now governor in a part of the country that will play a huge role in determining the outcome in November. Walz brought the added bonus of being the first to label nominee Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance as “just weird,” a tag that has stuck firmly to the Republican duo so far.
The third test came Thursday, when Harris delivered her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Harris had taken some knocks in the past for talking earnestly while saying nothing. That was not the case with her speech at the convention.
She came off as tough but compassionate, serious and sincere, and likable. Don’t underestimate likability in politics. Some voters want to know about a candidate’s values. Some want to know about a candidate’s ideology and policy priorities. But some just want to know if this is the person you would want to have as a neighbor or over to the house for dinner. In contrast to the often dour Trump, who tells us the country is going to hell, Harris offers joy and optimism.
Of course, her speech was probably written mostly by others, as is typical for those in high office or seeking it. But she had to deliver the speech, and she did so effectively. Plus her remarks were kept to a reasonable length at 38 minutes — nearly a full hour shorter than the rambling 92-minute acceptance speech Trump gave at the Republican National Convention in July that put many at home to sleep by the time it was over.
It would not be surprising to see Harris get a nice bump in the polls from what was an energetic, well-orchestrated convention, just as Trump’s supporters were pumped up after the gathering that solidified Republicans even more strongly around their nominee, who survived an assassination attempt just a few days earlier.
That bump for Harris, though, will pass, as it did for Trump. And the voters in the middle, who will decide this election in a half-dozen or so battleground states, could still go either way.
The pressure on Harris to flesh out her agenda and explain how she has moderated some of her past heavily liberal positions is going to grow. She carries the economic baggage of the Biden administration, which, for all the good numbers on jobs and the stock market, is still being identified with the high inflation that marked the first three years of the Democrats’ time in office. And there’s the strong discomfort that moderates have with Harris’ determined support of restoring abortion rights nationwide. They may find Trump distasteful, but they don’t want to turn back the clock to when abortion on demand was guaranteed everywhere.
The tests aren’t over for Harris. The next big one is just a couple of weeks away, when she will face off against Donald Trump in what could be their only debate. Harris is only in this position because of a debate performance that sunk Biden’s reelection hopes. She can’t afford a similar disaster.
