Kamala Harris leaves DNC with huge momentum but close race with Trump looms

Kamala Harris left the wildly successful Democratic National Convention this weekend with a strong political wind at her back, capping a charmed month in which she grabbed the presidential nomination and completely upended a race that had been former President Trump’s to lose.

The Democratic nominee now turns to an important 2 1/2-week stretch through the Labor Day holiday and leading up to the expected Sept. 10 debate with Trump, the next big milestone in the race.

Harris needs to build on the enthusiasm of the party’s base that was clear to all at the Chicago convention, lay the foundations of a successful race, especially in the seven battleground states, and maintain at least a narrow lead in polls, analysts on both sides of the political aisle say.

“Harris should ride the wave of emotion that has lifted her party and attracted at least the open-minded curiosity of some undecided swing voters,” said Lawrence Levy, a Hofstra professor who studies political trends in suburbia.

Tom Watson, a New York-based Democratic strategist, warned that Harris should remain laser-focused on building an edge in the handful of swing states that will almost certainly determine the winner of the White House.

“Trump (could still) either eke out a slim victory in some of those states or corrupt the counting and certification process,” Watson said. “Democrats have to fight hard on every front. To me, that’s what the tougher-than-you-are Harris speech signified: a deadly seriousness of purpose.”

Political experts traditionally expect each candidate to get a bounce in polls during and after their party’s convention. But the calculus was scrambled this year by the political earthquakes of the assassination attempt on Trump, which caused a brief but intense flood of sympathy, and Biden’s unprecedented decision to pull out of the race on the weekend after the Republican National Convention ended.

Harris quickly blunted any momentum Trump may have held with a lightning-quick consolidation of party leaders followed by a series of crowd-pleasing rallies. She struck political gold by picking Tim Walz to be her vice presidential running mate, as he has wowed supporters with his folksy small-town charisma. Then Democrats pulled off a political masterstroke with their convention, deftly managing Biden’s departure from the campaign and enlisting Democratic heavyweights like Hillary Clinton and Barack and Michelle Obama to back Harris.

Harris leaves Chicago with a 2-3% edge in polling averages and slight leads in the Rust Belt’s blue-wall battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that she needs to win.