Politics

Within the view of her aides, Harris is providing what voters appear to have been craving all yr: a brand new messenger, however one to this point providing modest evolution of the Biden-Harris document.

By ZEKE MILLER and CHRIS MEGERIAN, Related Press

August 26, 2024 | 8:30 AM

WASHINGTON (AP) — She’s the sitting vice chairman who has been in workplace for 3 1/2 years. She’s additionally the presidential candidate of simply 5 weeks promising a “new manner ahead.”

Kamala Harris is having it each methods as she hits the marketing campaign path after the Democratic Nationwide Conference, taking credit score for elements of President Joe Biden‘s document in rallies staged in entrance of Air Drive Two whereas casting herself as a brand new chief who rails towards “the politics of the previous.”

In each presidential cycle candidates run on expertise or freshness, however Harris thus far seems to be efficiently harmonizing two seemingly competing messages, a lot to the frustration of former President Donald Trump and his allies.

“She has this highly effective and distinctive and fascinating benefit that we have now by no means seen earlier than in our politics,” mentioned Patrick Gaspard, CEO of the Democratic-leaning assume tank Middle for American Progress Motion Fund and a former govt director of the Democratic Nationwide Committee underneath President Barack Obama.

“She is each an incumbent,” he mentioned, and “she’s been capable of seize the ‘change’ banner away from Donald Trump.”

Harris’ imaginative and prescient for the nation has leaned closely on Biden plans, to the purpose of not rewriting these plans even after Biden dropped out. The platform accredited by the DNC was handed final week with frequent — and outdated — mentions of a Biden “second time period.”

Her presentation as somebody providing a “new manner ahead” depends largely on being somebody completely different from the norm. The 59-year-old daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants changed an 81-year-old white man who first ran for president 36 years in the past. She is operating to develop into the nation’s first feminine president and first Black lady or individual of South Asian descent to serve.

Two-thirds of Democrats needed Biden to drop out after his debate efficiency towards Trump, which crystallized longstanding considerations among the many public and lots of distinguished Democrats in non-public about his readiness.

Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, mentioned Harris’ capability to embody change has “much more to do together with her age, her race and her gender, than it has to do with any coverage positions that she’s articulated.” He added, “That shouts change.”

Within the view of her aides, Harris is providing what voters appear to have been craving all yr: a brand new messenger, however one to this point providing modest evolution of the Biden-Harris document.

“She is her personal chief, after all,” Brian Nelson, her senior marketing campaign coverage adviser, advised reporters at a Bloomberg occasion on the DNC. “However she’s a pacesetter who has been a associate to President Biden for these final three and a half years,” including, they’ve “shared values and ideas.”

The Trump marketing campaign has attacked her lack of coverage specifics and tried to painting her as somebody way more liberal than she’s letting on. Maybe making an attempt to set expectations earlier than new polls emerge, the marketing campaign predicted on Saturday that Harris would see a post-convention bump in her polling and blamed what it referred to as the “Harris Honeymoon.”

“We’ve actually had a entrance row seat to the ‘honeymoon,’” wrote Trump pollsters Tony Fabrizio and Travis Tunis. “In truth, the Media determined to increase the honeymoon for over 4 weeks now.”

Harris’ marketing campaign introduced Sunday that it raised $82 million in the course of the week of the Democratic Nationwide Conference and a staggering $540 million since Biden give up the race and endorsed her on July 21.

Harris has sought to take credit score for elements of Biden’s international coverage document. In her conference deal with, she mentioned she had met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “to warn him about Russia’s plan to invade” 5 days earlier than Russia launched its full-scale assault. They met on the Munich Safety Convention in Germany, at a time when the U.S. had been warning publicly and privately for months about an invasion and already working with Ukrainian forces to arrange.

Trump will proceed making an attempt to stay Harris with the much less rosy elements of the Biden document. On Monday, he’s anticipated to go to Arlington Nationwide Cemetery to pay his respects to service members killed within the bombing outdoors Kabul airport three years in the past in the course of the calamitous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump will then go to Michigan to handle the Nationwide Guard Affiliation of the US convention.

Harris confirmed to CNN in August 2021 that she was the so-called final individual within the room when Biden made his resolution to withdraw.

“It is a president who has a unprecedented quantity of braveness,” she advised the community then. “I want that the American public can see generally what I see, as a result of in the end – and the choice at all times rests with him – however I’ve seen him over and over make choices based mostly precisely on what he believes is true. No matter what possibly the political individuals inform him is in his finest self-interest.”

Implicit in Harris’ messaging now could be the argument that Biden was additionally a part of the politics of the previous — whilst she takes credit score for his document and lauds him publicly. Harris’ first nationwide advert after the conference goals to lean into the generational distinction with Trump. “As a substitute of being centered on the politics of the previous, we have to be enthusiastic about the longer term.”

Voters, mentioned former Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer, “are thirsting for a brand new, extra hopeful politics.”

“If she will show to folks that she will flip the web page, then Kamala Harris will win,” she mentioned.