Kamala Harris’ campaign brings only good vibes to the DNC in 2024: “You can’t buy it. You can’t fake it”
What a difference a month makes.
Just a few weeks ago, at Republican Convention In Milwaukee, I saw thousands of confident Republicans gloating over the Democrats’ turmoil and looking toward what looked like a return to power. Donald Trump in the November election. But now, the dynamics of the race have reversed: Joe Biden dropped out of schoolTrump and the Republicans lose balanceAnd Kamala Harris not only narrowed the poll gap with the former president, but also seems to have become the leader.
“We’re dealing with a real energy problem,” Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, The number two Democrat in the Senate, told me. “You can’t buy it. You can’t fake it. It’s the kind of energy that people stay an extra hour at the headquarters, come brag about spending more time and knocking on more doors—a fun, positive approach.”
“I can understand why Donald Trump is worried,” Durbin added. “The momentum is on our side.”
And with that momentum comes excitement—a sense, as they flock to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention, that “a really special election could be coming,” as Sen. Chris Murphy “I think this country has been looking for something to be excited about for a long time,” the Connecticut Democrat said. “Joe Biden is a great candidate, but he ran in the middle of a pandemic. You weren’t allowed to feel full joy in 2020. So this is a special moment and you can feel this sense of relief from a lot of people who wanted to feel really good about a candidate and who are getting to experience that feeling right now.”
That optimism is a dramatic shift for the party: Biden has been trailing Trump in the polls due to concerns about his age and acumen, as well as broader unease among voters about the prospects of a 2020 rematch—and that’s even more so. before his Disastrous performance in June debate. It was a campaign that was largely based on the danger Trump posed to democracy—a real and serious threat, but one that did not appear to motivate voters the way it did four years ago. “We support our president…but there is no excitement there. It is anxiety,” said the chair of the Illinois Democratic Party. Elizabeth Hernandez. But Biden’s unprecedented decision to retreat deep into the election cycle appears to have reawakened the Democratic coalition, as Harris seeks to contrast her forward-looking vision with Trump’s obsession with his various grievances. “Oh my gosh, it’s just a whirlwind of energy,” Hernandez told me.
Some of that certainly stems from the rise of a newer, younger candidate than the one Democrats have run. But the excitement around Harris—who would be the first woman and the first Black and South Asian woman to serve as president—seems to go beyond that: “It’s hard to overstate the historic nature of this moment,” said the chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention. Minyon Moore said in an email, noting that this was “the first time a woman of color has won the presidential nomination of any major party.”
