Welcome to Democratic convention week.
The next four days in Chicago will be full of history, spectacle and lots of big speeches. It will be a huge moment for the Democratic Party and the country.
A woman of color will be formally nominated as a major party presidential candidate for the first time. President Joe Biden will symbolically hand off the title of head of the Democratic Party to Vice President Kamala Harris, signaling that his 50-plus years in politics are soon coming to an end (more on this below). Former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, both speaking this week, are symbols of what Democrats once were, while Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will step out on the national stage for the first time.
Harris heads into the convention with clear momentum. New polls show Harris has opened a narrow national lead over former President Donald Trump, a dramatic turnaround for Democrats in the last few weeks. A new AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll shows Harris’ favorability rating has dramatically improved, ticking up almost 10 points to 48%. The battleground states remain, well, battleground states.
Harris and Walz — who did a Pennsylvania bus tour on Sunday — are drawing big crowds, while the VP unveiled the core of her economic plan on Friday. The campaign’s fundraising is off the charts as the party base got a huge boost with Harris’ ascension to the top of the ticket. Harris’ campaign announced a $370 million TV and digital ad buy on Saturday that will last through Election Day.
We’ll see in the next several days how much this momentum has flowed downstream. The DCCC and NRCC will report their July fundraising totals this week. The DCCC has been beating the NRCC like a drum all cycle (more on that below.)
There will be a veritable tidal wave of Harris’ origin stories over the next few days — here are some good ones — as well as breathless coverage of a possible Beyoncé appearance. Queen! Maybe!
Yet, as always, don’t get caught up in the show. Trump still leads Harris on the biggest issues for voters: the economy, inflation and immigration. DNC officials remain very concerned about pro-Palestinian protests inside and outside the convention as Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas continues to divide the the party. A number of vulnerable Senate Democratic incumbents — Sens. Jon Tester (Mont.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Jacky Rosen (Nev.) — won’t be in Chicago, although Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin and Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego, Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey will be.
Trump is still the best thing Democrats have going for them. He’s the one issue on which they all agree. And let’s forget all the “Trump will focus on his message” or Trump reset stories. Seriously, after nine years of Trump, why bother with that anymore?
Trump is never going to give up personal attacks on his opponents because for Trump, everything is personal. Trump claiming he’s “better looking” than Harris or “Comrade Kamala” or the VP is anti-Jewish (yeah, ok) is what he knows best. Trump also said he’s “entitled” to personal attacks on Harris because she called him weird and Democrats want to throw him in prison.
But even Trump’s closest allies wince when they hear these kinds of ad hominem attacks on Harris, especially racist or sexist barbs. “Donald Trump, the provocateur, the showman, may not win this election,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “Policy is the key to the White House.”
This is what GOP congressional leaders have been talking about for weeks. Ask NRSC Chair Steve Daines or NRCC Chair Richard Hudson. Or Speaker Mike Johnson.
However, Trump knows that policy chops didn’t win him the White House in 2016, and he’s treating Harris as if she were Biden. So all this makes sense in the Trumpian worldview.
Now let’s talk about Biden’s speech tonight. Biden huddled at Camp David over the weekend with senior advisor Mike Donilon and speechwriter Vinay Reddy putting together his address, which will be historic in its own right.
Biden aides say the president will lay out in his prime time speech why Harris — his partner over the last four years — should be the next president. In Biden’s view, nothing less than the fate of American democracy is at stake in this election. Biden saved it in 2020 by defeating Trump, now he wants to help Harris save it again in 2024.
This is an extraordinarily delicate line that Biden and Harris are walking here. Harris wouldn’t be where she is without Biden. Biden wants Harris and her supporters to know that he “did more in one term than most presidents do in two.” Biden desires credit for his accomplishments, and the Biden camp remains unhappy with how he was treated by his own colleagues — especially Obama and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi — before he withdrew from the race.
Yet Harris can’t get where she wants to be — the Oval Office — without creating some space from Biden. Biden knows this. It will be fascinating to watch how they handle it tonight — and all week.
