CNN
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Kamala Harris has had her best moment so far.
The vice president had already secured enough delegate support to secure the Democratic nomination, sparking a fundraising boom and turning around a party that had appeared headed for defeat.
But while Harris could hardly hope for a better start in establishing her legitimacy within the Democratic Party after President Joe Biden abandoned his reelection campaign, she is just hours into the toughest task for a modern presidential candidate, and Republican nominee Donald Trump’s barrage of attacks is about to play out in the most unpredictable election season in generations.
On Monday afternoon, Vice President Harris gave a pep talk to campaign staff at her campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, and cemented the transition with a call with Biden, who is still recovering from COVID-19. After laying out the charges against Trump, Harris framed the race as “two different versions of what our country should look like.”
And in her first public appearance since Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday, Harris hosted an event on the White House lawn early Monday that featured the president’s image as its centerpiece.
Perhaps most importantly, Harris also received the support of fellow Californian and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, whose behind-the-scenes maneuvers played a crucial role in blocking Biden’s reelection, revealing that the 84-year-old woman remains the most effective and influential Democrat in the country. After Pelosi said her support for Harris was “official, personal and political,” other congressional leaders echoed her, ready to pin the party’s hopes on the historic, if unknown, standard-bearer at the pinnacle of American politics.
By Monday night, the vice president had garnered far more support than the 1,976 pledged delegates needed to win the nomination on the first ballot, according to CNN delegate estimates.
And after a donation freeze forced Biden out of the race, Democrats’ wallets are wide open. Harris raised more than $100 million between Sunday and Monday night and boasts more than 1.1 million donors, 62% of whom were first-time donors, campaign officials said.
The vice president’s rapid consolidation of power was striking. His hours-long phone blitz to Democratic leaders on Sunday suggested a pre-planned operation, but it was kept secret and not leaked. The plan appeared to stifle hopes of an alternative candidate or the desire of some in the party for a surprise primary to find a new candidate who could claim victory over the party flag.
There’s an old saying in Washington that there’s no better day for a presidential candidate than the day after he or she announces their candidacy. That saying usually applies to the electric first hours of a primary campaign. But Harris, 59, is now in the big leagues.
Harris will have to maintain sudden new momentum within a party that until Sunday believed it was headed for defeat as lawmakers increasingly gave up on the president after his dismal debate performance.
Even if Harris is successful in her plan to “earn and win” the Democratic nomination, she will be facing off against the most brutal campaign machinery in years, Trump, known for his misogynistic and racist rhetoric, and the coming months could mark the most competitive general election in modern memory.
Democrats are also putting a lot of pressure on Harris. Though the vice president has shown signs of improving her political skills in recent times, it’s never been her strong suit. This year, party leaders are not only banking on her as a last bastion for a new era of unrestrained conservative control that threatens to erase the accomplishments of Biden and Barack Obama’s presidencies. Having replaced Biden as the campaign’s figurehead, Harris is now leading an effort based on trying to defend democracy from Trump.
She has just over 100 days to get it all done.
Trump appeared briefly bewildered by the rapid shift in the Democratic nominee after Biden realized his bid for a second term that would end at the age of 86 was unsustainable.
But on Monday, there were new signs that the Trump campaign was adapting to a new reality and stepping up its attacks on the vice president. In a memo to reporters, the Trump campaign predicted fierce attacks on Harris.
Trump campaign co-managers Suzie Wiles and Chris LaCivita positioned Harris as the “co-pilot” for Biden’s most “egregious failures.” They suggested the vice president’s failure to address the causes of southern border crossings in Latin America has painted her as soft on illegal immigrants. “Her approval ratings are lower than Joe Biden’s. Harris is the least popular VP in history, which is unsurprising given her abysmal record,” the memo said.
“She means as much as Joe Biden does, which is to say, she means absolutely nothing.”
Harris’ bid for the Democratic nomination was the latest surprising development in a race that has bucked tradition by having the oldest president in U.S. history run for reelection and then withdraw at a late date. The Republican candidate, Harris, is also an unpopular old man and convicted felon who tried to subvert American democracy to stay in power after losing the last election.
Either way, last week’s Republican convention hailed Trump as an empowered hero who was touched by divine providence after the assassination attempt, which, along with the debate and Harris’s elevation, made up the three most significant events in the space of four weeks in modern White House campaign history.
But something has definitely changed.
One of the two major parties has now given voters something they’ve told pollsters for months: a choice between Biden and Trump. The question is whether Harris, who has exposed considerable political liability as vice president, has the skill, staying power and luck to reap the benefits.
• Harris has swiftly united the party, with key figures eager to avoid division over the nomination fight at next month’s convention in Chicago. Governors, senators, congressional representatives and state delegations rushed to endorse her. The accelerating momentum reflects the party’s desperation to prevent Trump’s reelection. “Unity has blossomed” since Biden’s withdrawal, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler said Monday, when 89 of the state’s 95 delegates declared their support for Harris.
• Democrats could reach a tipping point if Harris’ unique coalition can replace the weakened one that thwarted Biden’s electoral hopes. For example, a CNN poll in late June showed Harris would outperform Biden among women voters, independents and mobile voters if she faced Trump. These important voting blocs could be crucial to the outcome in a handful of battleground states and districts that could decide the outcome of the election.
• There are growing signs that Harris’s rise and Biden’s withdrawal have redefined the 2024 presidential contest. For months, Democrats have been on the defensive over Biden’s age and declining cognitive function. Now, suddenly, with a candidate nearly 20 years younger than the 78-year-old Republican nominee, a generational shift is underway. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley tried to exploit age in the Republican primary, but Democrats have made good on it, arguing that the party that first retires an “80-year-old” candidate will win the election. Democrats are now scrambling to reinforce that impression. “You’re never going to hear Donald Trump ask his opponent to take a cognitive test again. And you probably won’t hear that again,” Representative Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., told CNN’s John Berman on Monday.
• New Hampshire’s Republican governor, Chris Sununu, saw this coming. At a Politico event at the Republican National Convention last week, he said, “If they switch, it would change everything. You’d have a lot of close races in close states. You’d have more energy. I think Democrats would essentially be rewarded by independents, so to speak, saying, ‘None of us liked the Biden-Trump pairing to begin with. You had the guts to change your candidate.'”
• On Monday, Harris demonstrated how she can use the iconic image of the White House to boost her own reputation. For her to win in November, Americans need to start seeing her as a presidential candidate. As a first step, she welcomed the NCAA championship team, a task normally reserved for the president but taken over by Biden as he nears the end of his COVID-19 quarantine. She delivered a moving tribute to Biden, saying he “has surpassed the accomplishments of most two-term presidents.” Though she did not mention the election, her shadow was cast over the event, where she aligned with the youthful aspirations of young athletes and draped in the flag in a prediction of U.S. victory at the Paris Olympics.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who are expected to endorse Harris soon, said in a statement that “Vice President Kamala Harris is off to a great start by committing to seeking the nomination for president.”
But even tougher challenges lay ahead.
• In the race to nominate Harris as their front-runner, Democrats are throwing their weight behind a candidate who is unpopular, has not yet shown she can outperform Biden in key battleground states and has shown political insensitivity during the 2020 primary campaign that ended before the Iowa caucuses and during her early years as vice president. If Harris stumbles in the coming days and weeks, Democrats risk being seen as the party that has imposed on the country another 2024 candidate unfit for the job.
• The coming days will test whether voters’ dissatisfaction with the Democratic candidate stems from concerns about Biden’s age or from broader contempt born of frustration with the state of the economy, including high prices and interest rates. After all, Trump has consistently led polls on the issues that matter most to voters, from immigration to national security to the economy. If Biden’s legacy handicaps the election, Harris may be the one to pay the price.
• The Trump campaign has also stepped up its attacks on Harris, seeking to make her complicit in what Republicans describe as a White House cover-up about the president’s health and mental health. GOP vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance argued on Monday: “Kamala Harris lied. Her Senate Democratic colleagues lied. The media lied. Everyone who looked at Joe Biden knew he was incompetent but for three years they said nothing. And he ended up being a political liability.”
• There’s another potential obstacle for Harris’ campaign that hasn’t yet received enough attention but could affect the election: Sixteen years ago, many Americans believed the country would never put a Black person in the White House. But Barack Obama proved the doubters wrong. Now, Harris, a Black woman and Asian American, faces an even higher, historic barrier.
