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Attendees walk past a sign at the United Center ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, on Aug. 19, 2024.
Democrats are running a campaign built on vibes
In standard practice and just days ahead of the party’s Democratic National Convention, Democrats released their 2024 policy platform over the weekend. The rest of the race, however, has been anything but typical.
In the latest twist, Democrats chose not to update their party platform despite the name atop the ticket switching from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris. Instead, they opted to stick with a version approved in mid-July – from before Biden dropped out of the race. The platform frames a battle between “opportunity and optimism” versus “revenge and retribution,” laying bare a fundamental difference between the 2024 Democratic and Republican campaigns: one is about atmospherics, and the other is deeply personal.
In the month that Harris has sat atop the ticket, she has overseen a near-total change in the campaign narrative. Until July 21, 2024, Biden and former President Donald Trump had spent months locked in a protracted and bleak conversation about who was the bigger threat to democracy. Was age the more significant concern? How would the US manage a president with felony convictions? For months, US voters sat on the sidelines of a slow walk to a repeat of the 2020 election, which a meaningful proportion of those polled did not want.
With Biden’s exit from the race in July and the surprisingly seamless convergence around Harris, the storyline has shifted from a rerun to a “new way forward,” to take one of the vice president’s campaign taglines. And as the 2024 party platform reflects, for Dems, this way forward need not be connected to one politician or another.
Despite the newfound support for Harris – her campaign raised a reported $200 million during her first week as the candidate – this is not yet the Harris Democratic party. Harris is a conduit for Democrats who were searching for a lifeline out of a crisis and a path to preserve their November ambitions. If the policy platform is not updated to any specific Harris policy viewpoint, that’s not seen as a hindrance. If her vision of an “opportunity economy” is questioned by economists, it deserves only a bit of hand-wringing. While a Harris presidency would likely move policy in impactful ways, what is driving the moment for Democrats is unity behind defeating Trump.
This campaign tactic or strategy is paying dividends. Harris now leads Trump in head-to-head polling and across key swing states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. For the first time in the 2024 race, the latest monthly polling shows that more voters trust Harris to handle the economy than Trump. These poll results came in even before Harris had the opportunity to present her economic plan last Friday in North Carolina, where she homed in on tackling price gouging, housing insecurity, and rising tax bills.
In stark contrast, the Republican Party is synonymous with Trump. The party’s policy objectives are intertwined with Trump’s political agenda. The 2024 Republican platform, rife with capitalization and exclamation points, promises to seal the border, end the weaponization of government against the American people, and turn the US into a manufacturing superpower. Each is a key Trump view. As a sign of how far the campaign needle has moved, Trump’s allies are now urging him to return to the more disciplined, issue-based messaging he managed earlier in the 2024 campaign. The risk is that as Democrats go conceptual, Trump becomes too personalized and personal.
All of this will be on display at this week’s DNC in the Windy City, where a who’s who of Democratic heavyweights and orators – including both Obamas and Clintons – have assembled. Harris will take the stage on Thursday, the final night, to deliver an address under the aspirational theme “For our Future.”
Just as the race approaches the post-Labor Day homestretch, the world is watching as Democrats inject something into the campaign that has been missing over the long election slog: energy. The party convention represents a key test of both how well Harris can hold the party together, including around fault-line issues like the Israel-Gaza conflict, and whether Democrats can sustain the good vibes over the final push of the campaign season.
Lindsay Newman is a geopolitical risk expert and columnist for GZERO.
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’ 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.
Biden steps aside
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take on the back of a staggering announcement that President Biden is no longer standing for reelection. No one thought that President Biden should have stood for reelection after he won the first time. Certainly, nobody believed that he was going to be able to serve a full four years of a second term.
That was becoming increasingly obvious to Biden himself, because he saw what rank and file members of the Democratic Party were saying, how they were pulling. The internal polls that the White House has been getting over the last 48 hours were devastating for Biden, not just a loss, but a landslide that would have led to the Democrats getting wiped out in the House and Senate as well, would probably lead to the Republicans ending the filibuster. Biden ultimately a lot later than a lot of people wanted, but nonetheless ultimately standing down, standing aside, strongly endorsing Kamala Harris, his vice president, for the presidential nomination, and to defeat Trump come November. It is certainly a very long way to go. People were saying it's late. We have 107 days to go left in this election.
That's an eternity in US politics. It is longer than most elections in democracy actually occur for the entire campaign. And so, I mean, if you look at that, look at just how much might happen in a race where Trump and Biden have been historically both very unpopular, both seem to be far too old and unfit to serve as president for another term. Biden, the last numbers we saw in that were 74% of American voters saying that he was unfit to serve for another four years because of his age and increasing frailty. 49% of Americans said that about Trump. Now it's worse for Biden. But if Biden wasn't in the race, for Trump, that would be the worst that we'd ever seen.
And of course, now Biden isn't in the race and Trump is, which means that his age, his frailty, his incoherence when he makes statements, that is suddenly a big issue. It is immediately his largest vulnerability, even after the extraordinary ability of Trump to stand up and put his fist in the air and say, “fight, fight, fight” after an assassination attempt, a huge thing, but suddenly yet another piece of unprecedented history in the US.
This one in favor of the Democrats. I'd like to say this is a good day in US politics in the sense that it shows a level of selflessness from President Biden that he was unwilling ultimately, to put himself personally and his ego ahead of that of the country, and he recognized that this was going to be a disaster. No one had the ability to force him. They pressured him. They embarrassed him. They showed him facts. But ultimately, if Biden decided that he wasn't going to go, no one could have forced him. And of course, that's exactly the case for Trump as well. And, you know, you'll remember that after the 2020 election, when everyone in the Republican Party was saying, “you got to stop this, you got to stand down.” That's absolutely not what Trump was prepared to do. He puts himself above the party, above the country, and has done so consistently. I mean, you know, if you think about, the vice presidents in these cases, the 45th President Trump, threatened the life of his vice president in a last ditch effort to hold on to power, back on January 6th in 2021. The 46th president ended his campaign and strongly endorsed his vice president for the good of the country.
It would be hard to see a more dramatic contrast between two old white men in political power in the United States, one, America’s Nero, holding on for himself no matter what the consequences. The other, America’s Cincinnatus. They are not the same. And as a consequence, the US now has a much more competitive political race. I do believe that over the next month, the Democrats will not just dominate headlines, and they've done that a lot with Biden's unfitness, but also have energy and enthusiasm, and that they have not have and they haven't had for a very long time.
That is certainly an advantage for them. I think that Kamala Harris will do much better if the election nomination process is at least somewhat competitive. Now, I personally don't think that Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer, who are, you know, seen to be the most well-known and competitive candidates, potential candidates outside of Kamala Harris. I don't think they'll run, with Biden now having endorsed, fully endorsed his vice president, with Kamala wanting that endorsement, I think that they will wait, they’ll bide their time. They will support Harris, and they'll wait themselves until 2028. But I do think that others will decide to declare, I don't know who they'll be, but I think there will be some. And I think it's interesting that former President Obama did not endorse Harris. He said very strongly positive things about Biden. But he said that the process needs to be open and play out.
And I think that that is not just a knife to Harris. Not at all. I think it is a Obama recognition, that for all of her advantages, she has vulnerability and she will 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. So there needs to at least be some level of competition, a race that she has to show that she can win. And, you know, conceivably she could implode during that process. And then maybe she isn't the nominee, though I would bet a lot at this point that she is going to be. Where do we go from here?
We're in unprecedented times. As much as this is a better day for US democracy and there haven't been many, it is also true that this is a democracy that remains in crisis. We were less than a second, a fraction of a second away from former President Trump getting killed, getting assassinated, and if that had happened, I have no doubt that we would have had George Floyd-style riots across the country, but with a lot more guns. And I think that there is a lack of appreciation of just how close this country was to a level of political chaos, social instability and violence. And we have three more months plus before this election, where both the Democrats and the Republicans still believe that if the opponent wins, that it is going to be the destruction of democracy.
Biden's standing down did not change Trump's view of that or his supporters view of that. And the Democrats still feel the same way about Trump, and they feel the same way about Trump, even after his near assassination. There's been no unifying of the country on the back of that, and there'll be no unifying of the country on the back of Biden stepping down. But there may well be a lot more unifying of the Democrats, with perhaps a significant number of independents that show up. So very divided, deeply vulnerable over the coming months, we're going to be very busy. But it's nice on a Sunday to have something nice to say.
And I will certainly say that to President Biden, someone that I have criticized a fair amount over the past months, as he has deteriorated for not, doing the right thing in standing down, that you sir have my appreciation. as an American and more importantly, as a citizen of this little planet here, for doing something that the world can take a little bit of inspiration from, and thinking of someone beyond yourself for your legacy, which looks better today than it did yesterday. That's it for me.
And I'll talk to you all real soon.
With Biden out, can Kamala Harris defeat Trump?
Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, shares his perspective on US politics from Washington, DC.
What we're watching in US Politics: Biden is out of the presidential race, and it looks like Kamala Harris will replace him. The big question: How would she do against Donald Trump?
Joe Biden's out.
An unprecedented development is that the likely nominee for one of the two major parties has dropped out of the race with only a month to go before the Democratic conventions. The big question is who's going to replace him? And the obvious answer is Kamala Harris.
She's already picked up the endorsement of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. President Obama put out a statement saying that he would support whoever the nominee is and is looking forward to a convention to work this out, but that's probably just an indication that he wants this to look competitive. Harris herself put out a statement saying she's looking forward to earning the trust of everybody in the Democratic Party. But you also have luminaries like Jim Clyburn who are already endorsing Harris, and you're unlikely to see competitors like California Governor Gavin Newsom or Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer appear on the stage anytime soon. So Harris is probably going to replace Biden.
How does she do against Donald Trump?
Well, that's the big wild card in this election, 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. Harris also faces the baggage of being the successor to an incumbent running for that incumbent seat. And unpopular incumbents tend not to do a great job passing on their seat to their successor. Harris hasn't really done anything to distinguish herself in four years of running her own presidential campaign or serving as vice president. She's kind of been relegated to a D-list of policy issues that she hasn't done much to effect, and the Democratic Party has a lot of other people who could probably be more competitive if they had time to run a primary process, but they don't. Harris does bring new energy to the campaign and has the ability to unite the Democratic Party behind her. However, Trump just does better on the top issues in this campaign, which are inflation, the economy, and immigration.
Stay tuned for more of what we're watching in US politics during this wild election year. Thanks.
Extremists vs. moderates: The real divide in US politics
In a lively exchange for the latest episode of GZERO World, Ian Bremmer and media journalist Brian Stelter delve into the true nature of political divisions in the United States. Stelter argues that the real divides are not simply between Democrats and Republicans but between extremists and moderates. He emphasizes that "most people, whether they vote Republican or vote Democrat, denounce political violence... they want a stable political system."
Stelter calls these moderates the "great silent majority," but they are overshadowed by the vocal extremists on both ends of the political spectrum. "I wish it was possible to make the normies, the people in the middle, the moderates, more visible, to make their voices louder."
Bremmer and Stelter also discuss the unifying aspects of American society, suggesting that despite apparent divisions, there is significant common ground among the general populace. "Most Americans,” Stelter adds, “have a lot more in common than they realize." And what they have in common, most of all, is a desire to end this constant political chaos.
Watch the full episode: Trump, Biden & the US election: What could be next?
Season 7 of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, launches nationwide on public television stations (check local listings).
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Trump's close call and the RNC: Brian Stelter and Nicole Hemmer weigh in on a historic week in US politics
Listen: We're watching history happen in real-time. Never before was that fact more apparent than this week, when former President Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt, picked his VP candidate, presided over a united GOP at the Republican Convention, and all while a Democratic Party in disarray continued to clamor for Biden to step aside.
It's amazing that the afterthought for the week is whether the sitting President will remain on the ticket for an election just months away. But that's where we are.
In the latest episode of the GZERO World Podcast, Ian Bremmer reflects on this pivotal week in US politics and welcomes back media journalist and former CNN show host Brian Stelter on the show alongside Vanderbilt political historian Nicole Hemmer. “We're living in a period of escalating political violence and social and political instability,” Hemmer tells Bremmer. “That was true in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and I think that it's true today."
In a wide-ranging conversation that touches on all the major news of the week, Hemmer and Stelter dig into the political divisions that led to this moment of horrific political violence. “The real divides are not between Democrats and Republicans, although those are real” Stelter adds. “But the biggest divide that we're seeing is between extremists and those who are moderates, the great silent majority."
Both guests also comment on the media's role in this fraught environment, with Hemmer critiquing prediction-focused coverage and Stelter advocating for better representation of casual news consumers and politically fatigued voters. The three also discuss the likelihood of Biden stepping down, an eventuality that Stelter argues is inevitable. “It is clear the Democratic Party elites are not with Biden. And I don't see that tide turning. I don't see how it changes.”
RNC shows how Trump has transformed GOP
Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, shares his perspective on US politics from Washington, DC.
What we're watching in US Politics this week: Trump's utter dominance of the GOP at the just-concluded convention.
So the Republican convention just wrapped up and a very different tone and style of the last several conventions. And particularly, you know, you were knocked out in 1992 and woke up today, you probably wouldn't recognize this Republican Party at all.
And that's because of the total dominance of Donald J Trump in the party now, which was really exemplified by his choice of a vice president. JD Vance, very young, senator from Ohio, wasn't an elected official as of two years ago and is likely to be the next vice president of the United States. Contrast this to Mike Pence, Trump's pick in 2016, who was a long-standing conservative but establishment Republican that helped Trump shore up his weaknesses at the time with evangelical voters.
Today, Trump doesn't really have any weaknesses in the Republican Party. He is their leader. He's their most popular person. He just survived an assassination attempt. And you saw that affect all over there of the Republican National Convention this week, particularly when it came to issues like trade and immigration, where the party has taken a significantly tougher line than ever has before and has moved in a significantly more nationalist and populist direction. Contrast this to the George W Bush era, or the era of even the last two speakers, prior to Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan, and John Boehner, neither of whom were major presences at this convention. Just to show you how far the Republican Party has moved from its roots, even from the pre-Trump days.
Another unusual thing about the convention was that last night before Trump's speech, it was wrestling day. Hulk Hogan showed up, and Linda McMahon showed up. Dana White, the president of UFC, showed up, the Ultimate Fighting Championship. You don't expect to see these people at political conventions. But what they really reflect is kind of the heart and soul of the Trump campaign. Hulkamania is a throwback to the 1990s. And Dana White represents a demographic that Trump is hoping to make central to his political movement, which is young men. And young white men, young Hispanic men, and young black men are all groups that Trump is doing very well with and probably will be one of the keys to his victories in the fall if he wins.
You wouldn't expect any convention bounce coming out of this. Convention bounces are a little bit of a thing of the past. And Trump was really speaking to his base last night in a very long, rambling, rally-style speech. Not what you normally expect on primetime TV.
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.