With her closing address to the Democratic National Convention, Kamala Harris has made her most direct appeal yet to American voters in a campaign that is still less than a month old. That is not to say that her speech was packed with policy detail. Nor did it attempt the fiery rhetoric which had been heard from other speakers at the convention. Despite comparisons, Harris is not Barack Obama, although her election as president, should it happen, would be equally historic. For all the talk of joy and freedom, her message so far has been carefully calibrated to bring the disparate wings of her party together and rekindle hopes of a victory over Donald Trump.
In political terms, Harris remains an enigma. Her presidential campaign in 2019, when she pivoted unconvincingly to the left to appeal to Democratic primary voters, means that questions remain about her political principles and skills. These have not been fully laid to rest by her success so far this year. Four weeks after president Joe Biden endorsed her candidacy, she has yet to sit down for a single media interview. If opinion polls are correct, that strategy has been successful but she will have to face that test at some point. Her supporters will be more confident about her ability to take on Donald Trump when the first debate takes place on September 10th.
Despite those questions, the politician who accepted her party’s nomination on Thursday night did so with impressive confidence in a carefully modulated speech that energised supporters by laying out her own personal life story as the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica while promising to protect consumers and make housing more affordable. On Gaza, the most divisive issue for Democrats, she sought to walk a line between the position of the Biden administration of which she remains a part and a stronger acknowledgment of the suffering of the Palestinian people. Many will find that response inadequate but it probably served its political purpose.
Over the next two months, the Harris campaign must articulate a vision for governing the US that goes beyond the current mantra of defeating Donald Trump and defending the right to abortion, however compelling both propositions may be. Much will depend on how well she can craft convincing arguments on the economy and immigration, issues on which Republicans are trusted more than Democrats by voters.
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Ultimately, though, this election will hinge on a few hundred thousand votes in a handful of swing states. Harris’s current slim lead in some polls is far less than those held by Hillary Clinton in 2016 or Joe Biden in 2020 at the same point in the electoral cycle. Robert F Kennedy jnr’s withdrawal from the race on Friday should benefit Trump, albeit marginally. But in a race this close, even marginal shifts could prove decisive.