Democratic National Convention 2024: New hopes, old concerns

Full of energy

Democrats gathered in Chicago for the party’s national convention (August 19-22) with an unexpected emotion: overwhelming joy. Traditionally, the purpose of the convention is to formally nominate the party’s presidential candidate. But this year, Kamala Harris won the nomination earlier this month through an online ballot, so the nomination was largely ceremonial. With the nomination, she became the first woman of color to accept a major party’s presidential nomination in U.S. history. “This is a remarkable turning point,” said Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and former governor of Vermont. “The Democratic Party is reborn.” Or Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, who said: “The Democrats are back in the game.”

Indeed, in the space of a month, the Democratic Party has gone from being “unstable” and full of anxiety to being confident and proactive. Since incumbent President Joe Biden abandoned his re-election bid and passed the “torch” to his vice president, the Democratic Party seems to have had a reorganization of forces as Kamala Harris has united most of the party and restored confidence among young voters and people of color. While the race remains extremely tight, analysts have recently adjusted their outlooks for three swing states that had previously tended to drift away from the Democratic Party, but now have a chance for the Democratic Party to win.

For her part, Ms. Kamala Harris was originally considered a “firefighting” candidate that made many Democratic leaders worried, but she did a good job and created a positive effect for the race. This was demonstrated through two specific tactics. One was to proactively create new momentum and new energy for the election campaign, thereby creating excitement for voters participating in the election, especially neutral voters in the battleground states, turning potential supporters into potential supporters. The second tactic was to launch a campaign to attract support from Republicans who do not like Mr. Trump called “Republicans for Harris” to gain more advantages in the race.

Since replacing Mr. Biden as the Democratic nominee in mid-July 2024, Ms. Harris has seen a wave of enthusiastic support — reflected in polls, fundraising and huge crowds coming to see her at rallies across the United States. Fundraising has been at a record pace. The Democratic National Committee and other joint fundraising committees raised a record $310 million in July, far surpassing the amount raised by Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, in the same month. Celebrities, artists and fashion designers have all voiced their support for Ms. Harris’s campaign, both financially and in spirit. Democratic officials say the inspiration from Harris’s campaign is “leaking” down to the ballot box and translating into support on the ground. “You can see the huge crowds at the rallies,” said Ben Wikler, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. “But what you can’t see in those images is the thousands of people who are at those rallies signing up to volunteer and then going door-to-door with potential swing voters who may not know much about Vice President Harris or Governor Walz.” According to a new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 48% of U.S. adults have a very or somewhat favorable view of Harris. That’s up from 39% at the start of the summer.

Does the “honeymoon” last long?

Vice President Kamala Harris appears to have “redrawn the electoral map” after replacing President Biden. According to polls, Harris is leading or tied with Donald Trump in six of the seven swing states. However, this correlation still says nothing about the final result because the Democratic Party has many challenges ahead.

First, policy. In this election, perhaps the issues that voters care about the most and that may affect the election results are the health of the US economy and policies to deal with inflation. In the polls, about 80 to 85% of adults surveyed said that these two issues are very important in the presidential election, ranking first among 11 issues raised. Although both presidential candidates have outlined economic policies, so far Mr. Trump is still showing superiority over Ms. Harris in terms of reliability in handling the weaknesses of the US economy and reducing inflation. The support rate for Mr. Trump in handling these two issues is almost unchanged from the polls when Mr. Biden was the Democratic presidential candidate. Harris released an economic plan on August 16 that calls for tax cuts for families and a broader push to rein in drug prices, her most detailed vision for the country to date. But as a presidential candidate, she has not yet laid out a specific policy agenda or given in-depth interviews with the media as of August 17.

On foreign policy, Harris will also face protests over Israel’s actions in Gaza, an issue that has divided the Democratic Party politically. She has been more vocal than President Biden in her calls for a ceasefire and condemnation of civilian casualties, but she has not challenged the administration’s steadfast support for Israel—a stance that risks alienating the party’s progressive wing. So the biggest focus at the Democratic convention will likely be on unity around the Harris-Walz ticket.

In addition, maintaining the excitement of American voters for the Harris-Walz ticket is also a challenge and a difficult problem for the Democratic Party. Democratic strategists are taking advantage of the "excitement" of voters for the current election campaign. However, the problem is how long this "excitement" will last. Or as Republican candidate Donald Trump warned, Ms. Harris's "honeymoon" will soon end. The Harris-Walz ticket is expected to clarify its agenda during the Democratic National Convention. If the policy performance is not good, the Democratic Party's election campaign will certainly lose important momentum.

In polls, American voters say they are looking for change. Therefore, the direction of the Democratic Party's campaign is probably not only to unite but also to create changes that match voters' expectations, thereby creating a chance to win the election in November./.