The 100-day race to the US presidential election began on Sunday, the final act in a campaign reshaped by an assassination attempt and the shock exit of President Joe Biden.
After weeks of infighting and disappointment over Biden’s candidacy, Democrats have solidified their support for Vice President Kamala Harris, fundamentally reshaping the race ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election, when Republican candidate Donald Trump’s defeat was looking certain.
Ms Harris’ candidacy has clearly energised the Democratic campaign, which said Sunday it has raised $200 million, mostly from first-time donors, since Mr Biden dropped out a week ago to endorse his vice president.
A new Wall Street Journal poll found that Ms Harris’s growing support among black, Latino and young voters helped her narrow the six-point lead between Mr Biden and Mr Trump to just two points — within the margin of error.
But David Lee, the Republican pollster who conducted the Journal survey, warned Democrats not to get too excited about the growing competition.
“Donald Trump is in a much better position this election than he was at this time in the 2020 election,” Lee said.
If the race is close nationwide, Trump would still have the advantage under the Electoral College system for choosing the president.
Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election despite losing the national popular vote by about 3 million votes.
“We are the underdogs.”
“We’re behind in this race,” Harris acknowledged at a fundraiser on Saturday.
“But this is a people-powered movement and it has momentum,” she added.
The Democratic National Convention in mid-August will likely try to keep up this momentum with a big celebration of Harris’ candidacy.
Just a month ago, everything looked different.
Plagued by voter concerns about his age and intellectual ability, the 81-year-old Biden was at best a losing bet, lagging his predecessor in the first presidential rematch since Dwight Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson in 1956.
Biden’s disastrous performance in the June 27 debate has caused anxiety and panic within the party.
The perfect unity behind the 78-year-old Trump added fuel to the fire at the Republican National Convention, fueled by a failed assassination attempt on the former president at a rally in Pennsylvania just days earlier.
Biden initially appeared defiant, but succumbed to the inevitable and backed away last weekend.
At 59, Harris is a generation younger than the Democratic nominee, turning a stale contest between two unpopular, older, white, male candidates into a dynamic and unpredictable showdown.
The final outcome on November 5th is likely to be decided by around 100,000 independent and undecided voters in several battleground states that will be heavily attacked by both sides over the next three months.
Harris’ honeymoon
Ms Harris has a big challenge ahead: As Republicans adapt to her candidacy and hone their attack lines, they are primed to attack her on issues important to voters, such as immigration and high cost of living.
Democratic strategist James Carville told MSNBC that Democrats need to abandon their optimism and prepare for the coming storm.
“They’re coming at us and they’re going to keep coming at us and all this euphoria isn’t going to help us much anymore because we’re going to be facing it,” he said.
Even former President Barack Obama warned against arrogance, stressing Harris’ weak state status and the need to earn voters’ trust.
Trump, whose approval ratings have risen since the July 13 assassination attempt and the Republican National Convention, made his priorities for the attack clear at a rally on Saturday in the traditionally Democratic state of Minnesota.
Trump called Harris a “crazy liberal” and a “radical left-wing lunatic,” lied about her being an extremist on the issue of abortion and mocked her for laughing.
“We have a new victim,” he told cheering supporters.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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