In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, Democratic presidential candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt made “Happy Days Are Here Again” his official campaign song.

With its optimistic lyrics – “The skies above are clear again, so let’s sing a happy song again, happy days are here again” – the tune expressed hope that with a new occupant of the White House, a better future lies ahead.

For years, Happy Days Are Here Again was the unofficial anthem of the Democratic Party before it eventually faded into obscurity. Today, Democrats may not have rediscovered the song, but they’re certainly embracing its sentiment.

Since Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race three Sundays ago, Democrats have turned their collective disapproval into a smile and embraced the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris with a passion and enthusiasm not seen on this side of the Atlantic since the heady days of Barack Obama’s historic bid for the White House in 2008.

The change in attitude is not difficult to understand. Democrats initially believed they were certain to lose the White House, but now there is growing optimism that American voters will be able to elect their first female president – eight years after failing to do so.

Although the prospect of another Trump term is causing great fear in much of Britain, Europe and the world, the fear is even greater among Democrats.

Biden has long been a popular figure in the Democratic Party—a man whose integrity and empathy stood out in the cynical world of American politics. But his victory in the 2020 election had a simpler explanation—Democrats were desperate to oust Trump from the White House. Biden’s rise to the top of the party was a testament to his political skills, but even more so an overwhelming belief that he was the candidate with the best chance of defeating Trump in November. Because of this, 2020 saw the highest voter turnout in recent history, with 17 million more Americans casting their ballots than four years earlier.

For much of 2024, Democrats were plagued by fear that Trump would return to the White House and bring with him the chaos, dysfunction and authoritarian mindset of his first four years in office. With Biden tied or trailing Trump in the polls for much of the year, Democrats wrung their hands but did not really panic.

On June 27, Trump and Biden met on stage for the first presidential debate in American political history – and it did not go well. Biden stumbled through the 90-minute debate and looked every day of his 81 years. The fear, largely suppressed by the Democrats, that the president was too old to win a second term came to the surface.

For three weeks, the party was in a state of complete collapse, and many were convinced that Biden was doomed. By mid-July, it was clear that he had lost the confidence of his party, and he wisely abandoned the race.

The wave of emotion that accompanied Harris’ rise to the top of the ballot was more than just joy at her candidacy. In one afternoon, Democrats went from deep despair over another Trump term to sky-high optimism that happier times had arrived again. Within a week, Harris had raised an incredible $200 million and more than 170,000 people had signed up to volunteer for her campaign.

Part of this excitement certainly had something to do with Harris, who is a very different candidate than the one who completely failed in her 2019 campaign for the White House.

Buoyed by overwhelming support for her candidacy, she has brought a lightness and cheerfulness to the campaign that is in stark contrast to Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance. The fact that she has included Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Midwesterner who likes to crack dad jokes, on her ticket has only increased her appeal. Her raucous rallies to sold-out crowds have brought a level of excitement to the Democratic Party not seen in years.

If elected, she would be the first female president in American history—and only the second black person to win the highest office in the land. It should come as no surprise, then, that Harris has quickly addressed Biden’s persistent problems with black voters. But the impact on American women could be one of the most interesting dynamics of the upcoming campaign.

When Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, her defeat was a gut-punch for many women. Not surprisingly, the first major protest against Trump’s victory took place the day after his inauguration, at the so-called Women’s March, which attracted nearly 5 million Americans.

In 2018, I spent the weeks leading up to the first midterm elections after Trump’s victory on a rainy afternoon in the suburbs of Memphis, Tennessee, with women who were going door-to-door for Democratic candidates. They all spoke to me about the vitriolic anger, frustration and helplessness they felt watching TV on election night in 2016 when they realized Clinton had lost to an angry misogynist.

Some of these women had voted for Clinton, others had stayed home, but all were so bitter about their defeat that they became political activists almost overnight, even in one of the most Republican states in the country. What I witnessed in Tennessee has been repeated across the country for the past eight years.

Suburban women were at the forefront of the Democratic Party’s electoral victories in 2018, 2020 and 2022. It’s not hard to imagine that the opportunity to vote for Harris would be an opportunity for many to right the wrongs done to Clinton while also sounding the death knell for Donald Trump’s political career.

If that happens, Democrats may spend the next four years singing “Happy Days Are Here Again…”