By Jarrett Renshaw
(Reuters) – In the five weeks since U.S. President Joe Biden abandoned his unsuccessful re-election effort, the fortunes of the Democratic Party have turned dramatically, and this week that change will be clearly visible.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s current candidate, is entering the Democratic Party Convention with a historic series of successes: her campaign has broken fundraising records, filled stadiums with supporters and turned the polls in some swing states in favor of the Democrats.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, have made “joy” a campaign slogan, a stark reminder of the despair the party felt just weeks ago. The two will publicly accept their party’s nomination at the convention in Chicago, which begins Monday.
“It was a historic shift,” said Joseph Foster, a 71-year-old former Democratic Party chairman from a Philadelphia suburb who is still active in the party. “People are excited, young people are engaged. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
With less than 80 days to go until election day, the party hopes to ride this wave of enthusiasm and lead to victory.
This would make Harris the first black vice president of Asian descent and the first female president of the United States.
But pollsters and strategists from both major parties warn that the “sugar rush” of Harris’s initial surge will fade, leaving behind simmering disagreements among Democrats over the economy and the war between Israel and Hamas, as well as a bitter battle against Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Harris’ historic personal story is “all well and good, but it is the issues that will ultimately decide this election. These issues include inflation, security, leadership and the world stage,” predicted Republican pollster Adam Geller.
Harris delivered her first major economic speech on Friday, laying out proposals to cut taxes for most Americans, ban price gouging by grocery stores and promote affordable housing – an early sign to the progressive side of the party.
She will face increasing public pressure in the coming weeks to provide more details about her policies. Aides have suggested that she is unlikely to provide many specifics in some areas, such as energy, to avoid angering the moderate and progressive wings of her party.
Harris may also have to contend with intra-party disputes over U.S. support for Israel’s war against Hamas, as well as familiar disagreements between progressives and moderates on a range of policy issues, including energy, health care and immigration.
About 200 social justice organizations plan to march at the Democratic National Convention on Monday to protest the Biden administration’s continued support for Israel in a war that has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
NEW CARD TO VICTORY
Harris, who will speak at the convention on Thursday, begins the week of celebrations riding the momentum of a series of polls that show she has already redrawn the electoral map, which was still heavily in Trump’s favor in the final weeks of Biden’s candidacy.
According to the latest report from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, released Wednesday, Harris is ahead or tied with Trump in six of the seven swing states expected to decide the Nov. 5 election.
The election analyst has shifted his ratings for the swing states of Arizona, Georgia and Nevada in favor of Harris, after placing all three states in the “more Republican” category in early July, when Biden was still the Democratic nominee.
“I think we’re looking at a reboot where the Democratic nominee has reinvigorated or at least reconstituted the Biden coalition of 2020, not completely, but it’s much better organized than it was when Biden was at the top of the ballot,” Cook editor-in-chief Amy Walter said in a phone call detailing the poll’s results.
Biden won the White House in 2020 with strong support from black, Hispanic and young voters in the US, but their enthusiasm for him was much lower this time.
He finally resigned on July 21 under pressure from longtime allies and senior Democratic politicians as doubts grew about his mental state and his chances of defeating Trump.
Biden endorsed Harris, and she quickly won the party’s support. The move quickly changed the campaign, boosting Democrats and forcing the Trump campaign to hastily devise a new battle plan.
A Monmouth University poll released Wednesday found a significant increase in enthusiasm among registered Democratic voters and a sizable increase among independents.
In June, only 46 percent of registered Democrats said they were enthusiastic about a rematch between Biden and Trump – in the latest Monmouth poll, conducted earlier this month, that number rose to 85 percent.
The rise in enthusiasm among independents rose from 34% in June to 53% in the latest poll.
Still, Walter said concerns about immigration and the economy would help Trump this time after he lost his own re-election to Biden in 2020.
“It’s a coin toss,” she said of the race between Harris and Trump.
(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Heather Timmons and Deepa Babington)
