Kamala Harris has the momentum as Donald Trump struggles with his campaign strategy

In politics, fortunes can turn at a moment’s notice. The past week was a case study of just how extreme those changes can be.

To start with, the Democrats went from despair to elation. With Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, most Democrats felt that they were sleepwalking toward a total disaster in November. But with Biden’s decision to pull out of the race, Democrats felt that they suddenly had a chance to beat Donald Trump.

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The Democrats are quickly unifying behind Kamala Harris as their presidential choice

Democrats are quickly shaking off the paralysis of Biden’s failing campaign and getting excited about his VP’s chances.

Meantime, the rank-and-file’s image of Biden as a stubborn old man who refused to realize it was time to retire was replaced by hymns of praise for his willingness to put country and party above his ambition.

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Then there’s Kamala Harris. Pundits had long viewed Harris’ performance as vice president as unimpressive and far from the best choice to succeed Biden (even after he endorsed her). Political types were enamored by a range of other candidates, like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer or California Gov. Gavin Newsom. In an open primary, which some in the media had been urging (imagine the opportunities for coverage!), Harris would fail again, as she did in 2019.

Instead of the chaos of a fight to replace Biden, Harris swiftly moved in to fill the vacuum. She displayed deft political maneuvering and revealed what was there all along: she’s a smart operator with a warm personality. The fact of the matter is that on most issues there would be virtually no difference among any of Biden’s possible successors, or at least not enough difference that general voters would be that interested in.

Moreover, Democrats just want to move on. And with the prospect of defeating Trump suddenly a possibility again, they swung from depressive to almost manic in their enthusiasm. That’s been reflected in the money the Harris campaign has raised: $200 million in the first eight days, much of it from small donors psyched about her candidacy.

Timing is everything, and in retrospect the timing of Biden’s withdrawal couldn’t have been better. If he had left much earlier, the battle to be his replacement would have been drawn out and messy. With so little time left, Democrats were happy to coalesce around a solid candidate who had the virtue of having been on standby to step into the Oval Office at a moment’s notice.

The parry is also going into their convention, bursting with energy. They have a younger candidate who immediately solidified her message: I’m a prosecutor and Trump is a felon. For Democrats who are spoiling for a tough candidate, it looks like Harris is the perfect choice. It’s impossible to imagine that Biden’s campaign would repeatedly hammer the Republican ticket as “weird.”

Meanwhile, if the timing is working for the Democrats, it’s crushing Republicans. The high that the GOP felt coming off of its convention immediately dissipated with Biden’s announcement. More to the point, so did Trump’s entire campaign strategy, since Trump never thought Biden would step aside. (After all, Trump would never.)

That has left Trump scrambling to come up with a new campaign message. In fact, Trump keeps returning to the old ones, repeatedly mocking Biden’s age during his campaign appearances, which only draws attention to the fact that Trump is now the oldest candidate ever nominated for president. In what must be a particularly galling development, Harris is getting all the attention while Trump is struggling to garner any media focus.

And then there’s the focus Trump does get: his disastrous choice of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) as running mate. Like so much else in Trump World, the selection of Vance was clearly done in a slapdash manner, based on Trump’s whim. Vance brings nothing to the ticket: he represents Ohio, a state not in play and in which Vance vastly underperformed when he was elected.

What he does bring to the ticket is a seemingly endless stream of offensive statements that are a gift to Democrats. He complained about “childless cat ladies,” suggested the feds should stop women from traveling to have an abortion, and promoted the idea that parents with children should have more votes than anyone else. These comments are the kind of thing that a less arrogant campaign would have considered a problem but that the Trump campaign considered a bonus for the base. The campaign was even willing to overlook Vance formerly comparing Trump to Hitler and heroin.

Except with Biden out, it’s not all about the base anymore. Now it’s a real race, and convincing swing voters – many of them women – to vote for a ticket where one candidate was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman and another glories in misogyny seems really difficult. Instead of helping Trump, Vance is a drag on the ticket.

He has managed to make Sarah Palin look like a brilliant choice in comparison.

Right now, the momentum is with Harris and the Democrats. That doesn’t mean that won’t change. The real attacks on Harris haven’t even begun. (You can count on some anti-LGBTQ+ code calling Harris a “San Francisco liberal.”) Even if she manages to withstand them, the Electoral College favors Trump. Harris has to overperform in order to win the presidency.

But Republicans may have peaked too soon. The bounce from the convention and the sympathy afforded Trump from the shooting in Pennsylvania will only fade with time. He may well be at the peak of his popularity right now. And right now he’s essentially tied for Harris in the race.

That’s not a good spot for Republicans. For the rest of us, though, it’s cause for hope.

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