Democratic lawmakers and delegates will flock to Chicago next week for a jovial four-night party of a national convention that just weeks ago was shaping up to put a dispassionate party on full display.
What would have been a stoic affair hindered by a major doubts that President Joe Biden could defeat Republican nominee Donald Trump is shaping up as an energetic crowning of Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s nominee.
Out as the Democratic Party’s main message is Biden’s rather grim warning about Trump and American democracy. In is a forward-looking vision espoused with wide smiles by Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who have described themselves as “joyful warriors.”
Biden’s attempt to hold off his critics proved insurmountable, but Harris faces her own tall hurdles: Using the Democratic National Convention to continue her unlikely campaign’s early momentum and show she can shoulder a divided party and appeal to enough independent voters to knock off Trump and his sizable base.
Biden is scheduled to address the convention on Monday night, giving Democrats something of a tightrope to walk as they honor one president and hear an acceptance speech from who they hope is the next. But when asked about how Democrats navigate that potential awkwardness, Heather Hendershot, a Northwestern University professor whose research focus is political conventions, replied: “I think they’ve got this.”
“When it comes to managing this change at the top of the ticket, I really do think you’ll see a party that’s as unified as it can be,” she said in a Thursday telephone interview. “You’re going to hear from former Democratic presidents, the outgoing president and a former presidential nominee in Hillary Clinton.”
“That will be a big contrast with the RNC. Who were the former Republican presidents or vice presidents in Milwaukee? Donald Trump, that’s all,” Hendershot noted. “Success is projecting that unity via all the party leaders that will speak on stage, and then they will have to get two powerful speeches about the future from Vice President Harris and Governor Walz.”
A Monmouth University poll released Wednesday found a substantial jump in enthusiasm among registered Democratic voters and a sizeable one among independents. Less than half of registered Democrats (46 percent) in June said they were fired up about a Biden-Trump rematch, but that jumped to 85 percent in the latest Monmouth survey, conducted Aug. 8-12. The jump among independents was from 34 percent in June to 53 percent last week. Registered GOP voters held steady at 71 percent in both polls.
Monmouth found 48 percent of registered voters said they would “definitely” or “probably” vote for Harris, compared to 43 percent saying the same about the Trump.
“This is clearly a different ball game,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. “The nominee change has raised the ceiling for potential Democratic support in the presidential contest by a small but crucial amount, at least for now.”
But Harris still has work to do to assuage various parts of her own base, especially when it comes to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
“The big question is how to handle any disruptions on the floor. … But some of the folks that, had Biden stayed in the race, would have been doing the disrupting have been a part of the unity push,” Hendershot said. “The bigger issue is violence outside the convention hall.
“There, if disruptions on the floor are minimal, that would be a big difference from 1968, when the Democratic convention was marred by disruptions on the floor and violence outside the conventional hall,” she said. “If we only see big protests outside, then the Democrats’ message can be, ‘We have tremendous sympathy for those protesting. But they don’t represent the overwhelming majority of our party.”
‘More humane place’
Harris, in another sign of how she has altered the campaign, was direct and forceful with pro-Palestinian protestors during an Aug. 7 rally in Detroit.
“We believe in democracy. Everyone’s voice matters, but I am speaking now,” Harris said.
Audio captured by television networks indicated the protesters, including one woman with her head covered, wearing traditional Muslim attire, were chanting, “We won’t vote for genocide.”
The vice president attempted to restart her stump speech, but the protestors again interrupted with chants. That’s when Harris sounded a much different tone than Biden had when he was still running and was confronted by pro-Palestinian protesters. He had let them speak before security personnel removed them from rally venues.
“You know what, if you want Donald Trump to win, then say that,” a stern-sounding and -faced Harris said, looking directly at the demonstrators. “Otherwise, I’m speaking.” But in a likely preview of her message to Arab American voters during her convention acceptance address, she had a more diplomatic message for another group protesting at a rally in Phoenix on Aug. 9
“Hold on. Here’s the thing: We are all in here together. … We’re here to fight for our democracy, which includes respecting the voices that I think we are hearing from,” she said.
“I have been clear: Now is the time to get a ceasefire deal and get the hostage deal done. Now is the time,” Harris said. “And the president and I are working around the clock every day to get that ceasefire deal done and bring the hostages home. So, I respect your voices, but we are here to … talk about this race in 2024.”
Arab American groups had been frustrated with Biden since soon after Israel responded to Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack on its soil when around 1,400 Israelis were slaughtered. Over 650,000 Democrats did not vote for the president in the party’s primaries this year in protest.
More than 39,000 people have died in Gaza as Israel has contended its brutal bombing campaign has targeted Hamas operatives and leaders, according to a Hamas-run Palestinian health agency. Tens of thousands more have been wounded.
Even as Harris checked the protesters in Detroit and Phoenix, leaders of one of the top pro-Palestinian movements on Aug. 8 issued a statement indicating they spoke with Harris at the Motor City rally and would like to support her candidacy — though they are pushing for an end to U.S. arms shipments to Israel, something Harris has been clear that she does not support.
“We found hope in Vice President Harris expressing an openness to meeting about an arms embargo, and we are eager to continue engaging because people we love are being killed with American bombs,” the co-founders of the Uncommitted movement, Layla Elabed and Abbas Alawieh, said in a statement.
“When we told Vice President Harris that members of our community in Michigan are losing dozens and hundreds of their family members to Israel’s assault in Gaza, she said back: ‘It’s horrific.’ It’s clear to us that Vice President Harris can lead our country’s Gaza policy to a more humane place. … Palestinians cannot eat words. Our communities are in deep pain,” they said.
But they ended with a warning: “Our democracy cannot afford to pay the bill for disregarding Palestinian lives should it come due in November.”
‘Battle of inches’
Whether Harris needs to worry about the bloc in Michigan could come down to turnout.
Trump had been narrowly leading Biden there, but a Morning Consult poll conducted after Harris had all but locked up the nomination put her up 11 percentage points. Three more recent polls put the vice president up there by between 2 points and 4 points, with a RealClearPolitics average of several polls giving her a 2.4 percentage point lead.
Any lingering members of that movement who conclude they can’t vote for Harris might be offset by independent voters who ultimately side with her.
“Despite her role as vice president, Kamala Harris is not currently burdened with President Joe Biden’s unpopularity, and is seen by a majority of voters as offering a chance to turn the page of the Trump/Biden era’ and representing a ‘new generation of leadership,’” Cook Political Report Publisher Amy Walter wrote in a memo this week.
“Harris’ success in closing the gap [on Trump] is driven by her consolidation of the Democratic base, and increased support among independent voters,” Walter added. “With partisans now equally engaged, the next 80-plus days will be a battle of inches centered on (re)defining the vice president’s image and defining the issues over which the presidential election will be fought.”
That work has been underway for several weeks. It will kick into high gear Monday in Chicago, and was on display at a joint event with Biden in Prince George’s County, Md., just outside Washington on Thursday.
“Our democracy is at stake,” Biden said to an overflow room crowd, “and I left you with the woman who is going to take care of it.”
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