We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at her Presidential Campaign headquarters in Wilmington, DE, U.S., July 22, 2024.
Harris and Trump plot new campaign strategies
InKamala Harris’s previous run for president, her campaign was plagued with so much public infighting she was forced towithdraw before the first primary votes were cast. In addition, herapproval ratings during her time as vice president have sometimes fallen below President Joe Biden’s.
So how has she generated so much excitement among Democratic voters and donors so quickly?
Between Biden’s withdrawal announcement on Sunday afternoon and Monday evening, the Harris for President campaign says it raisedmore than $100 million, a huge haul by any standard. That adds to the party’s already formidable fundraising this year. Credible Democratic Party challengers quickly endorsed her. By Monday night, Harris had secured enough delegates to lock down the party’s presidential nomination.
In part, her success is a sign of Donald Trump’s perceived weakness. The media’s recent focus on Biden’s unpopularity has obscured the reality that a majority of Americans –57% in a recent poll – want Trump out of the race too. That figure includes 51% of independents and 26% of Republicans. Add the reality that Biden’s exit from the race leaves Trump, 78, as the oldest person ever to win the nomination of a major party for president. Trump remains the betting favorite, but Dems believe, rightly or wrongly, that he’s beatable.
And for anyone wondering what strategy Harris might adopt against Trump, there’s this obvious clue from her first speech as a presidential candidate. Highlighting both her history as a prosecutor and Trump’s status as a convicted felon: “I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”
Much of the media attention on the Harris campaign will now focus on her choice of a vice-presidential running-mate. But there’s another looming question: Will Harris and Trump debate? ABC News is scheduled to host a second presidential debate on Sept. 10, but Trump has already cast doubt on his plans to attend. Heposted the following on his Truth Social account:
“My debate with Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President in the history of the United States, was slated to be broadcast on Fake News ABC, the home of George Slopadopolus, sometime in September. Now that Joe has, not surprisingly, has [sic] quit the race, I think the Debate, with whomever the Radical Left Democrats choose, should be held on FoxNews, rather than very biased ABC. “
Beyond that, Trump is keeping his options open.
Finally, Trump faces another challenge he didn’t expect: His new opponent is a woman of African and South Asian descent. He defeated Hillary Clinton eight years ago, but Harris doesn’t come with Clinton’s considerable baggage, and there are plenty of women and people of color who will listen carefully to Trump’s every word for signs of bias against women and/or racial minorities.
In short, Trump faces an opponent with no history of national electoral success of her own but one who poses a series of campaign dangers he didn’t face until Sunday.
VP pick United States Senator JD Vance Republican of Ohio and Usha Vance after Former US President Donald J Trumps speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Fiserv Forum on Thursday, July 18, 2024. Monday night was Trumps first appearance since a rally in Pennsylvania, where he sustained injuries from an alleged bullet grazing his ear. Trump recounted the story in his speech, and also talked about Biden, immigration, and other topics.
Vance offers AI contradictions
On July 15, Donald Trump announced that he has selected JD Vance as his running mate. Vance, the junior senator from Ohio, rose to prominence after publishing his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” but his humble roots took him first to Yale Law School and then to the world of venture capital. He’s hailed as a politician with strong ties to Silicon Valley, and also as a politician fiercely critical of Big Tech. “What do you get when you cross a tech bro with a luddite?” Eurasia Group's Jon Lieber responded when we asked him to summarize Vance’s views.
This apparent contradiction is further highlighted by Vance’s recent statements on artificial intelligence. He has advocated for reduced regulation of the AI sector, and has claimed that tech companies’ focus on existential risks of AI are a lobbying tactic to elicit friendlier regulations.
He also shows a surprising regard for FTC chair Lina Khan’s leadership on antitrust enforcement under Joe Biden, saying that Khan has been “doing a pretty good job” especially in bringing suits against bloated tech companies. Khan notably supports AI regulation.
“I would assume someone who puts the concerns of working people and families first and foremost in his policy orientation would be relatively hostile to specific policies that accelerated the adoption of disruptive technologies,” Lieber notes. “But on the other hand, I would also think this will result in only a limited number of policies that actually attempted to curtail them.”
Lieber suggests that Vance's policy focus might include “restrictions on minors’ access to social media, data privacy rules, and investigations into tech companies for monopolistic practices.” He sees Vance as fundamentally opposed to centralized power, which could have mixed implications for AI innovation.
“This could be either good for AI innovation if you think it will happen in a decentralized way, or bad for AI innovation if you think it can only come from large incumbents with massive resources to spend on energy, compute, etc.,” Lieber said.
Some of Vance’s contradictions may become clearer over time, but they could easily be dwarfed by the whims and policy goals of Trump.
What Kamala Harris means for AI
Joe Biden exited the presidential contest on July 21, acceding to increasingly loud calls from his own party to step aside and pave the way for a new face at the top of the Democratic ticket. Enter Kamala Harris.
Harris, the current vice president, has secured the majority of DNC delegates already and is the presumptive Democratic nominee, but her campaign is merely two days old. We still don’t know what positions she’ll focus on or how she’ll govern if she’s able to triumph in November.
But, lucky for us at GZERO AI, there are clues about how she’ll tackle artificial intelligence.
Harris is a Bay Area native with deep ties to Silicon Valley. She’s also the former top prosecutor in San Francisco and the state of California, home to many of the world’s largest and most powerful tech companies. She’s gone after large tech companies on issues such as data privacy and nonconsensual sexual material, but she has also consistently cashed in on donations from many of Silicon Valley’s top donors.
As VP, Harris was dispatched to England for the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park last year. “Just as AI has the potential to do profound good, it also has the potential to cause profound harm,” Harris said in her remarks there. She spoke of not only the “existential risks” the summit focused on, but also algorithmic bias, deepfakes, and wrongful convictions that could be caused by AI.
“Vice President Harris has been a leader on the Biden-Harris administration’s work on AI, representing the United States as the UK’s AI summit in 2023, and has focused on critical safety and civil rights issues,” Adam Conner, vice president of tech policy at CAP Action, told GZERO. “Technology policy issues are not new to Vice President Harris, who has a long history addressing key technology issues from her time as Attorney General and Senator from California, and that expertise would be put to good use if she becomes the next president.”
Harris also sent a warning shot at Bletchley.
“As history has shown, in the absence of regulation and strong government oversight, some technology companies choose to prioritize profit over the wellbeing of their customers, the safety of our communities, and the stability of our democracies,” she said.
While a Donald Trump presidency promises to be hands-off when it comes to regulating AI, look for a Harris presidency to follow in Biden’s footsteps (see more below in the Watching on JD Vance). Biden strengthened export controls on chips, issued an extensive executive order on AI, and ramped up government adoption of the technology — including in the military.
Harris is no stranger to walking the fine line between being pro-innovation and tough-on-tech. She’s done it for decades. As she tries to win back Silicon Valley from the right and make a difference on important tech issues, expect her to draw on her experience from back home.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden claps hands next to U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris while hosting a Juneteenth concert on the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. June 10, 2024.
Bye-bye Biden. Will Dems choose Harris?
After resisting calls from within the Democratic Party for him to resign for weeks, President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he will not run for reelection in November. He then endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him.
What now? By dropping out, the delegates who pledged to vote for Biden can now vote for whomever they want, opening the door for the party to rally behind another candidate ahead of the Democratic National Convention. Alternatively, the party could conduct an open convention where prospective nominees vie for support from delegates at the DNC on Aug. 19.
Bill and Hillary Clinton have already come out in support of Harris, with more party heavyweights expected to endorse her in the coming days. Other potential candidates are unlikely to throw their hats in the ring to avoid creating chaos. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has already announced she is not seeking the nomination, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom endorsed Harris. “I think that they will wait, they’ll bide their time,” says GZERO and Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer. “They will support Harris, and they’ll wait themselves until 2028.”
But that doesn’t mean others won’t consider a bid. Late Sunday, there were reports that Sen. Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, may re-register as a Democrat in order to compete for the nomination.
Still, Harris is an obvious successor for more reasons than just being Biden’s VP. Importantly, the Biden-Harris campaign war chest – totaling $95.9 million at the end of June – can easily transfer to her. Campaign finance law would require those funds be transferred to the DNC or a Super PAC if anyone else becomes the nominee, making coordination far more difficult.
That being said, Ian says that Harris would “benefit from a process that doesn’t look like the political machine has just decided that they’re going to anoint her, that there’s not going to be a primary process … there needs to be some level of competition.”
Who is Kamala Harris? Harris is the first woman, first Black person, and first Asian American to ascend to the vice presidency. And she would be the first female US president if elected.
Harris began her political career as a prosecutor, district attorney, and state attorney general in California, and went on to be elected to the US Senate in 2016. Her law enforcement record has been both a gift and a curse to her political campaigns, giving opponents on both sides of the aisle fodder to point to when she was either too tough, or not tough enough, on crime.
As VP, Harris has struggled to define herself while being tasked with an issue portfolio that included voting rights and stemming illegal migration at the southern border.
How does she fare against Donald Trump? “That’s the big wild card in this election,” says Eurasia Group’s US director Jon Lieber. “Her favorability is basically where Joe Biden’s was – in the high 30s – which is a bad place to be if you’re going to get elected, but Donald Trump isn’t that popular himself.”
An Economist/YouGov survey found that 79% of Democrats would support Harris as the party’s nominee, and across recent polls, Harris trails Trump by two percentage points nationally, 46% to 48%.
Having been Biden’s VP, Harris will be attacked by the GOP for the administration’s handling of the border and the economy. “Trump does better on the top issues in this campaign, which are inflation, the economy, and immigration,” says Lieber.
That said, she has reenergized the Democratic Party, many of whose leaders seemed close to accepting defeat with Biden atop the ticket. Harris, at 59, also brings youth to a campaign that was previously between two octogenarians. Despite having a decades-long political career, most Americans don’t really know Harris, which gives her the opportunity to make a new impression in the 107 days left on the campaign trail.
“That’s an eternity in US politics,” says Ian. “It is longer than most elections in democracies” around the world.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns at Westover High School in Fayetteville, North Carolina, U.S., July 18, 2024.
Hard Numbers: The Kamala Harris Edition
38: A FiveThirtyEight analysis of nationwide polls earlier this month found Kamala Harris had a 38% chance of winning the electoral college in November, slightly higher than Joe Biden’s 35%. In either scenario, Trump is still the heavy favorite, but there is a lot of campaigning to do before November.
95.9 million: The $95.9 million war chest the Biden campaign pulled together before his dropping out will now be the center of attention as the unprecedented decision to leave the top of the ticket this late in the game puts the funds in question. Legally speaking, it will be easiest for Kamala Harris to take control of the pot, another measure in her favor.
60: Kamala Harris turns 60 in October, which would make her the average age of presidents should she win. Donald Trump, on the other hand, at 78 years and 8 months, would become the oldest president ever inaugurated.
106: There are exactly 106 days left before the US general election on Nov. 5, and Kamala Harris will need every second to rally the party around her and fight for her shot at the Oval Office. Stay tuned to GZERO for the whole ride.U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle speaks at a press conference by the U.S. Secret Service about the Republican National Convention on Thursday June 6, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wis.
Will new Secret Service admission cost Cheatle her job?
The US Secret Service has now admitted to denying some security requests from Republican nominee Donald Trump’s campaign over the past few years. Before the assassination attempt against the former president last week, Secret Service agents in Trump’s detail had also requested more snipers and specialty teams at other outdoor events, which top officials at the agency denied due to a lack of resources and staffing shortages.
The change of narrative turns up the heat on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who is set to testify before a House committee hearing on Monday about the assassination attempt. Questions include why the would-be assassin was not apprehended prior to the attack despite being flagged by a Secret Service counter-sniper 20 minutes before.
While Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas maintains thathis confidence in Cheatle is “100%”, a slew of Republicans, as well as a Democrat,Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, have called for her resignation. President Joe Biden, while supporting Cheatle, has ordered an independent investigation.
At a House briefing last week, Cheatle admitted the Secret Service fell short at a “no fail” mission but so farhas no plans to resign. We’ll see if that changes this week – and what other information comes to light at the hearing.Donanld Trump at the RNC
| USA TODAY NETWORK |
RNC wrap-up: Trump's speech and the GOP's evolving identity
On the fourth and final night of the RNC, Donald Trump took to the stage for the first time since he was nearly assassinated at a campaign rally. He began his speech with a detailed, dramatic retelling of the shooting, in which he was saved by God, in the style of a grandfather telling their grandchild a war story at bedtime. Members of the audience cried, he kissed the firefighter uniform of Corey Comperatore, who was killed by the assassin. He called for unity.
"The discord and division in our society must be healed. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart," said Trump, who went on to say that he was running to be president for "all of America, not half of America."
But Trump’s sedate and sentimental calls for harmony quickly evaporated, giving way to his more standard attacks on Democrats. “They’re destroying our country,” he said. Trump also repeatedly claimed that the Democrats stole the 2020 election, saying “they used COVID to cheat.” (For a deep dive into the stolen election conspiracy theory, check this out.)
And he went on. And on. And on. For more than an hour and a half – the longest nomination acceptance speech on record – he described meanderingly, an economy in shambles, a murderous job-stealing invasion of illegal immigrants, and a world on fire: all courtesy of Joe Biden, all fixable only by Donald Trump. When he concluded – nearly half an hour after first saying “in conclusion” – many of even the most faithful Trumpers in the room were reportedly fidgety.
Still, every party convention is a jamboree for its candidate, and in the wake of Trump’s near-death experience, this convention has had an almost-religious, over-the-top zeal. From the MAGA outfits (seriously, you need to look at the dresses), to Hulk Hogan tearing off his shirt to reveal a Trump/Vance tank top, and Trump repeatedly claiming that he survived the attack only because he “had God on [his] side” the final night cemented the impression of Trump as a kind of divinely protected figure, even a deity in his own right.
This is a changed Republican party. Traditional establishment figures like Mitch McConnell got a mild reception, while MAGA figures, regardless of whether they have a political background, were enthusiastically embraced – none more than Trump’s Veep pick, JD Vance.
The one thing Republicans avoided talking about. Speakers hammered Biden on inflation, immigration, and foreign policy. But one thing they didn’t talk much about was abortion. Despite Roe v Wade’s demise being one of the crowning achievements of the Trump presidency, abortion has barely received a passing mention, likely because the party recognizes that it is a divisive and politically toxic issue. Even JD Vance, an absolutist on restricting abortion, has stayed silent on the issue during the convention.
It's also another sign of the changing nature of the party. Abortion was once a rallying force within the GOP, but is now the latest example of how the Republican Party is departing from decades of party orthodoxy as it undergoes a historic realignment to woo younger, more diverse, and working-class voters.
Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump raises his fist during Day 1 of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 15, 2024.
Political Mo: The price of a winning streak?
Does the thrill of political momentum threaten to undermine the most important part of any campaign: the policies?
By any measure — polls, donor dollars, media attention — all the political momentum, or “mo,” in campaign 2024 has swung to Donald Trump. It started after Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance — it was like a coming-out party for the erosions of old age — but hit speed records in the wake of the tragic assassination attempt. The former president’s now-iconic moment of badassery, when, blood trickling down his face, he pumped his fist and yelled, “Fight, fight, fight,” has animated Republicans. He says he even changed his convention speech to reflect the reality of political violence and polarization — and that will be one of the big things to watch for tonight. Many, like Sen. Marco Rubio, argued that Trump’s survival was proof of divine intervention (Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called it a “miracle” and claimed the flag aboveDonald Trump took the form of an angel right before the gunshot), infusing the campaign with a Christian nationalism and eschatology.
Tech oligarch Elon Musk just announced that he is donating $45 million a month to Trump, joining his billionaire tech bro Peter Thiel on the MAGA train that is surprisingly making lucrative stops in Silicon Valley, once a bastion of Democratic support. Adding to the Trump “mo” is the ascension of 39-year-old Marine veteran, financier, lawyer, and “Hillbilly Elegy” author JD Vance as the VP nominee. Vance’s biographically marbled speech at the RNC on Wednesday night highlighted his background in an Ohio devastated by globalization and the opioid crisis. It featured his mother, who has struggled with addiction, a personal story that tenderized the red meat served up earlier by Donald Trump Jr. and Peter Navarro. Navarro had just been released from a four-month sentence for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 congressional committee — and was cheered as a hero, which was as telling about the new RNC anti-institution, radical culture as anything that has happened so far.
Vance directly appealed to working-class voters in key swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. At times, it sounded like an old-school pro-union, pro-tariff Democrat speech from the 1990s, and it was a starkly different pitch than the massive corporate tax cuts Trump pitches, but it’s now on-brand for the neo-Republican coalition of angry working-class males and right-wing, anti-regulatory tech, energy, and mining elites.
MAGA now has an heir but more importantly a license to think generationally as opposed to just four-year election cycles. This is no longer about just an impulsive “dictator-for-a-day” vengeance win over the Biden administration and the “wokeys.” It’s about a fundamental hard-right-wing rewiring of American politics and international relations. The battle plan is the Heritage Foundation’s Platform 2025, and the foot soldiers are the once-fringe MAGA-ites like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Donald Trump Jr., and Matt Gaetz, who will play significant roles in a Trump administration.
This is what the Trump “mo” looks like numerically: A new YouGov poll has Trump ahead in key swing states like Arizona (+7 points), Georgia, (+4), Michigan (+2), North Carolina (+4), Wisconsin (+5), and Pennsylvania (+3). In other words, Trump and his MAGA-ites are out-polling, out-rolling, and out-trolling Democrats on all levels.
Meanwhile, it’s chaos in Bidenlandia, where the president is collecting bad news like a wool sock gathers burrs in the forest. On Wednesday, he revealed he has COVID as he was desperately trying to reset his campaign and get over his stilted, confused, mistake-riddled performances. He’s now picking up viruses faster than endorsements, and the odds that he will not make it to the convention as the nominee are rising.
A new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research revealed that most Democrats want Biden to step down, a sentiment buttressed by a stunning call from high-ranking Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff, who is running for the Senate in California. “I believe it is time for him to pass the torch,” Schiff said. Late Wednesday, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer reportedly joined the calls for Biden to leave, but he did so privately. Et tu, Chuck?
The thing about political momentum is that it’s often generated by factors that have nothing to do with the core reason elections exist: policy. Who has the best ideas to govern the country? That is the core question, not who looks best in an ad. This is an election to run a country, not an audition for a modeling agency, but it’s hard to tell the difference anymore. How much does an assassination attempt or a bad debate performance have to do with who is best to deal with a rogue Russia, an aggressive China, or a war in the Middle East? Who can tackle inflation, productivity issues, and climate change? Who will handle AI regulation or protect the rights of minorities? Who will handle the border crisis? Who will actually create jobs? Do tariffs help the economy, or drive up costs? Who will stand for a peaceful transition of power or an independent judiciary? Who should pick the seats on the Supreme Court?
On all these matters, there are real, consequential policy debates – on some, Republicans are stronger, and on others, Democrats are stronger. This is the battlefield on which Biden would like to fight because he believes Trump — with his 34 felonies and his readiness to throw Ukraine to Russia, Taiwan to China, and most judicial and governing checks and balances out the window — is vulnerable. But he can’t. The political momentum is against Biden, and when that happens, you lose the most important aspect of campaigning: setting the agenda.
Biden is totally reactive now, and even as he pitches policies to get on his front foot — on Wednesday he was courting Latinos with the promise that undocumented spouses of US citizens could avoid getting deported — they evaporate like a puddle in Death Valley. When he gets to a stage to talk about policy, he can barely articulate the words without stumbling, faltering, and losing his train of thought. For post-debate Biden, the mistakes are the message. That’s what happens when you lose the political mo.
Things can change, of course. Events happen, like the horrible shooting or the debate, and suddenly the big mo shifts, but it’s getting late and harder to see that happening. For now, the biggest story of the campaign is not policy, it’s momentum, and while that makes for dramatic storylines, it tells voters less about potential Gulf wars and more about fabricated golf scores. Political mo matters and is essential to winning, but it can be used to introduce policy ideas or to avoid them and focus only on attacks and slogans.
There is another consequence: Political mo speeds everything up and floods the zone with stories about snap polls and hot takes on winners and losers. But the whole point of campaigns is to debate the opposition, to pause from the pace of governing, and slow things down for a considered reset. Campaigns are meant for people to ask questions. Check facts. Read the details. Holds folks accountable. And make a considered decision.
That’s not political mo — it’s policy mo. Political mo and policy mo should be intimately linked, but with the dramatic events these past months — felony convictions, age-related floundering, shootings — the coverage is over-indexing on the politics and under-indexing on policy. When each candidate has such a radically different view of America, a little policy mo is badly needed. Sadly, it’s turning out that examining ideas closely and factually is a political loser.