Vice President Harris’ heated start to her presidential campaign has raised questions about how long her political honeymoon will last.
Republicans have been saying for days that Harris’ performance since President Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed her has been like a shooting star rather than a sustainable one, and with three months to go until November, they expect her to fall back to earth in accordance with the laws of political gravity.
But Democrats are optimistic that Harris’ first-week success is sustainable, and say the idea of a short-lived honeymoon is foolish.
“There’s no limit to what a newlywed can do. She’s clearly the right person at this point to unify the Democratic Party, and a unified Democratic Party gives you a huge boost,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo. “She has momentum, and I think it’s going to continue for a while.”
“You can’t fake this. This is reality,” Hickenlooper continued, pointing to polls showing voters are unhappy with the choices between Trump and Biden. “Voters are now excited to have someone elected president who is younger, more energetic, who has the drive and enthusiasm to make everyone feel good about the day.”
Harris has raised record amounts of money in the past week, received a flood of endorsements from Democrats and secured enough delegate support to clinch the nomination.
As of Tuesday night, the vice presidential campaign said it had raised $126 million since formally announcing its candidacy Sunday afternoon, and Democrats have argued their fundraising muscle can keep up.
Democrats have seen a significant increase in support from young voters since Harris ran for office. Axios/Generation Lab SurveyHarris holds a 20 percentage point lead with this group, but the president is beating Trump by just six points.
“I don’t think she’s peaked yet,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told The Hill.
But there are parts of her early shock-and-awe campaign that can’t be repeated, including high-profile endorsements from most of the party’s biggest wits, including Democrats in the House and Senate, as well as former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama.
And, indeed, the way the baton was passed to her was a historic political seismic event: Biden, under intense pressure from other Democrats, stepped aside and endorsed Harris, generating a level of excitement that might not have existed if Biden hadn’t sought reelection and if the Democratic Party had adopted a more typical primary process.
Harris has some smaller initiatives to keep the momentum going, such as the Democratic National Convention and selecting a vice presidential nominee, but some Democrats believe their impact will be limited.
“This is the Harris way of doing things,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. “I think there are a lot of potential vice presidential candidates, but there’s a lot of enthusiasm right now because we don’t have a running mate.”
The next month will be an active one for Democrats, with the Democratic National Committee expecting Harris to officially secure the nomination on August 1 if unchallenged, choose a running mate by August 7, and head to the party convention on August 19.
Despite Harris’ strong start, Trump still leads in most polls, including in battleground states, though she has closed a gap created in large part by Biden’s debate performance.
Republicans believe the vice president will come back to reality if they can get him to drive home the message about what they see as problematic positions on the border, energy, policing and more.
“I think there’s a sense of euphoria that it’s not Biden,” said Sen. Mike Braun, a Republican running for governor of Indiana in November. “I think if you look at the direction of her policies, she could do worse than Biden.”
Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville warned that excitement about Harris “needs to be tempered with realism,” reminding Democrats that a tough race remains ahead. Carville also said: Be warned He added that while “this kind of euphoric euphoria” is not present among Democrats, “it’s not going to work for much longer” for Republicans in this election.
A Thursday poll by Emerson College Polling and The Hill showed Trump leading Harris slightly in key battleground states, but the margin is larger than Biden’s polling against Trump in those states. National polls compiled by The Hill/Decision Desk show Trump leading Harris about 48 percent to 46 percent, suggesting Harris still has some room to make up ground.
Anita McBride, a former chief of staff to former first lady Laura Bush, said she was not surprised by Harris’s strength because Democrats had time to catch up after losing three valuable weeks to intraparty fighting.
But she noted how quickly things can change in the political world.
“Things can change in an instant, events can happen that change a campaign, change the focus of a campaign, change the coverage of a campaign. Obviously, we saw that in Butler, Pennsylvania,” she said, referring to the assassination attempt on Trump.
“We are certainly in the honeymoon period. We are a united people, stronger and more confident. There are no fights at the convention,” she said. “But anything can happen. In politics, every day is an eternity.”
There are also questions about how the debate, if held, might affect the political landscape. The Biden-Trump debate at the end of last month saw the president’s poor performance spark calls for him to step down, throwing uncertainty into the 2024 presidential election.
Though the Trump campaign has yet to hold a debate, Harris sounded confident on Thursday.
“I am ready to debate Donald Trump. I have previously agreed to the debate on September 10th, and he has previously agreed to it,” she told reporters. “Now he’s backed away, but I’m ready. I think voters deserve to see a split screen of this race on the debate stage, so I’m more than ready.”
