Kamala Harris has had as good a three-week stretch as any presidential candidate in modern American history.
When Joe Biden dropped out on July 21, less than a month after his catastrophic debate performance against Donald Trump, the Democratic Party was on course to be defeated in a landslide. Today, Vice President Harris is slightly ahead of Trump in national polls, and in three important swing states—Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan—new surveys by The New York Times and Siena College show her leading by four points, 50–46, among likely voters.
Since May, when Biden was the nominee, Harris has gained seven points in Pennsylvania, five points in Wisconsin, and four points in Michigan. The Democratic National Convention, which should give her an additional boost, begins next week. By the time it ends, fewer than 75 days will be left until the November 5 election.
The data are pretty clear. Harris has electrified the Democratic Party; a Wall Street Journal survey found that 93 percent of Democrats now support her. Among Democrats, voter satisfaction with their choice of candidate has increased a staggering 27 percent in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan since May. So-called double-haters—voters who are dissatisfied with both major-party choices—have for now broken for Harris. In addition, positive views of Harris have increased 11 percent in less than a month. As Nate Cohn, the chief political analyst for the Times, put it, “On question after question, the poll finds that voters don’t seem to have any major reservations about her.” She’s not without vulnerabilities, especially the charge that she’s too liberal, but the race is now hers to lose.
What explains this head-snapping shift in the presidential race? Only after Biden withdrew did it become fully clear just how enfeebled he was as a candidate, how much his age and his decline were damaging his chances to win reelection, and how much he was crushing the spirit of Democratic voters.
Many Americans who would otherwise vote for the Democratic ticket couldn’t bring themselves to do so as long as Biden was the nominee; his decline was simply too alarming. His debate against Trump cemented those concerns, making it clear to me within minutes that he couldn’t win the election.
Desperation spread among Democrats; polls showed Trump within striking distance in New Jersey, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Virginia. So Biden’s decision to drop out of the race released enormous pent-up energy and enthusiasm among Democrats. They immediately unified around Harris. Long-standing divisions within the party were cast aside. The Democrats were back in the game.
Biden’s impairments also masked the extent of Trump’s flaws as a candidate. The former president exhibits “epic scars & vulnerabilities,” in the words of David Axelrod, chief strategist for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns. Trump has been disliked by a majority of Americans from almost the moment he ran in 2016, and their misgivings have only deepened as Trump’s behavior has grown more unhinged, narcissistic, and lawless.
Biden’s abrupt departure deeply unsettled Trump. His entire campaign was built to defeat Biden. Trump survived an assassination attempt, then met a rapturous reception at the Republican National Convention, and concluded that the race was won. And it was, until Biden stepped aside and Harris stepped up.
Trump, enraged and rattled, is reverting to his feral ways. We see it in his preposterous claim that Harris’s crowds, which are both noticeably larger and far more enthusiastic than his own, are AI-generated; in his resentful attacks against the popular Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, and his wife, because Kemp didn’t aid Trump in his effort to overthrow the election; and in his attack on Harris’s racial identity.
At precisely the moment when Trump needs to elevate his performance, to the degree that such a thing is even possible, he’s gone back to his most natural state: erratic, crazed, transgressive, self-indulgent, and enraged. One by-product of this is that Trump has provided no coherent or focused line of attack on Harris. His criticisms are not just vile, but witless. The prospect of not just being beaten, but being beaten by a woman of color, has sent Trump into a frenzy in a way almost nothing else could.
That the Democratic Party was rejuvenated by Biden’s withdrawal is hardly surprising. But very few people anticipated how skilled Harris has been as a presidential candidate.
It’s not simply that she’s made few missteps so far, which is itself impressive. It’s that she’s hit all the right notes, projected self-assurance, and framed the race in just the way she wants: In contrast with Trump, she is future-oriented, a change agent, at ease and joyful. “The one thing I will not forgive [Republicans] for is they tried to steal the joy from this country,” Governor Tim Walz, her vice-presidential choice, said at a rally in Detroit, perfectly capturing this point. “But you know what? Our next president brings the joy. She emanates the joy.” Harris and Walz seem to be having great fun on the campaign trail. The contrast with Trump and J. D. Vance, who are dystopian, perennially aggrieved, and weird, to use the adjective of the day, couldn’t be greater.
At the same time, Harris is tacking to the center on such issues as fracking, immigration, and law enforcement. One of her first ads focused on border security and ends this way: “As president, she will hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking. Fixing the border is tough. So is Kamala Harris.” So far, she’s fortunate not to have been held responsible for what the public believes are the failures of the Biden presidency. Only those who have been a part of presidential campaigns, as I have, can appreciate how much of a challenge it is to get things right, to say nothing of getting things this right.
Harris, right now at least, isn’t simply the nominee of the Democratic Party. She seems to have created a movement, the closest parallel to which is Obama’s 2008 campaign.
Something else, and something quite important, has changed. The whole landscape of the campaign has been transformed. The rise of Harris instantly cast Trump in a new light. He formerly seemed more ominous and threatening, which, whatever its political drawbacks, signaled strength; now he seems not just old but low-energy, stale, even pathetic. He has become the political version of Fat Elvis.
Trump is much better equipped psychologically to withstand ferocious criticisms than he is equipped to withstand mockery. Malignant narcissists go to great lengths to hide their fears and display a false or idealized self. Criticism targets the persona. Mockery, by contrast, can tap very deep fears of being exposed as flawed or weak. When the mask is the target, people with Trump’s psychological profile know how to fight back. Mockery, though, can cause them to unravel.
Presidential campaigns usually feature wide swings of momentum, and this summer has demonstrated that more than most. Right now, most polling experts regard the race as a toss-up. It may be. The Kamala Harris honeymoon will end, and she has yet to face a crisis in her campaign. When she does, we’ll see what it involves and how she’ll deal with it. And I would be the last person on Earth to question the devotion of Trump supporters. But at the moment, it really is beginning to look like The Trump Show is reaching the end of its run.
This might be wishful thinking on my part, and too much is at stake to indulge in complacency. But what will likely define the rest of the race is Trump, a tempest in his mind, raging, raging, and raging again. Trump will go down in American history as many things, almost all of them poisonous. And the label he most fears is the one he now worries will ever be affixed to him: loser.
