Photo: Erin Hooley Associated Press Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois
Fabien Deglise in Chicago
Published at 0:00 Analysis
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Shaela Worsley was just 8 years old when Barack Obama became the first African-American president of the United States in 2008. “I remember watching it on TV. I remember my mother being so emotional. But I didn’t really understand what was happening,” she says from the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week.
Now 23, the political science major and the youngest member of the Kentucky delegation celebrating Kamala Harris’s nomination as the Democratic presidential nominee in November says she now better understands the power of the moment.
Especially since she is experiencing it herself today. “What is happening with Kamala Harris has opened my eyes to what my mother experienced with Barack Obama,” she says. “There is an enthusiasm, a fervor, a joy that we could not have imagined just a few weeks ago in the Democratic campaign. Kamala Harris has brought back hope, light and smiles. And it is electrifying.”
Joe Biden’s decision a month ago to withdraw from the race and the entry into the fray of his vice president to succeed him have not only changed the tone of the American electoral race. They also seem to have allowed the emergence of a popular movement around this new candidacy, a current that several Democratic activists now like to compare to the wave generated by Barack Obama and his campaign based on the hope for change, in the wake of the Bush years, which led him to the White House.
“We are even facing something bigger,” said Raven Lions, a physician assistant, political activist and delegate from Louisiana to the Democratic convention. “Kamala Harris does not only embody a new vision, but a change of generation of politicians in Washington. And it is important for me, as a young African-American woman and Democrat, to be here to bear witness to this. »
A Siena College poll conducted between August 8 and 15 for the New York Times confirmed Kamala Harris’s ability to change the electoral destiny set by her aging predecessor, whose entry into a new face-off with Donald Trump did not really excite the crowds.
The vice president is ahead of the populist by 5 points in voting intentions in Arizona, at 50%, and by 2 points in North Carolina, at 47%, two key states to open the door to the White House. Democrats were lagging behind with Joe Biden as their candidate.
Nationally, she was ahead of the Republican by 3.6 percentage points in the average of opinion polls from FiveThirtyEight.com on Friday.
This enthusiasm, beyond the numbers, made the walls of the United Center vibrate all week with the words “joy” (“joy”) and “forward” (“forward”) of a campaign seeking to appear positive in contrast to the bitterness and insults of Donald Trump.
“In a divided America, no one has been able to break through the loyalty to Trump,” notes Alan Sanders, a political scientist at Saint Peter’s University in New Jersey, when contacted by Le Devoir. “She’s trying to do that by projecting and promising a positive populism—a populism that offers better opportunities and better living conditions for most ordinary Americans. It’s a way of breaking with Trump’s negative populism, which mainly calls for the elimination of everything that people fear or don’t like.”
And she does it in a spirit of communion, in a palpable excitement and, above all, in a unity that Barack Obama did not enjoy in his time.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000“In 2008, the Democratic Party had to overcome the division between Obama and Hillary Clinton, who fought a tight race for the nomination until June of that year,” recalls Barbara Perry, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, in an interview. “But Democrats quickly rallied behind Kamala Harris because of the unique way she became the candidate. She had no competition and, more importantly, she didn’t come out bruised by a long primary and caucus season, which is a big change.” »
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This text is published via our Perspectives section.
Keeping the flame alive
At the end of the week’s Democratic political high mass, several party strategists are now wondering whether the vice president and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, will be able to sustain expectations and keep the flame they have just lit alive until election day on November 5.
“A lot can happen between now and then,” notes Ed Emerson, a former aide to Kamala Harris when she was a senator from California, whom we met this week in the halls of the Democratic convention. “Keeping hope alive until November is not going to be easy, especially in the face of a Donald Trump who will toughen his tone and multiply the low blows and insults to prevent his defeat.”
“Hope is what gets the troops mobilized and gets them out to vote, which is what Democrats need,” said Brandon Lenoir, a professor of strategic communications at High Point University in North Carolina, sitting in a lounge at the United Center where Le Devoir met him this week. “Turnover is what’s going to tip the scales.”
“If there are more Democratic voters than Republican voters in the United States, it’s harder for Democrats to get to the polls. […] To take the time to go and vote, you have to be motivated, to feel that you are facing two truly different candidates,” a strong contrast on which Kamala Harris’ team must continue to work, according to him.
Democrats have been on display all week, not only in the hopes they’ve spoken about on stage, but also in the series of issues that speakers and delegates have promised to defend: access to abortion, defense of the middle and working classes, respect for diversity. And in protecting democracy from Donald Trump, with his authoritarian tendencies and fascination with tyrants. A message that was received with delight by the activists gathered in Chicago.
A Sense of Unity
“We are setting a new milestone in our country’s history with the candidacy of the first African-American and Asian-American woman,” said Raymond Delaney, a former military officer turned criminal justice professor at Southern University in New Orleans and a delegate from Louisiana. “Kamala Harris is a unifying force. She’s not only drawing the votes of African-American women, but also men, progressives, labor activists, Latinos, LGBTQ+ people, Hindus, Indigenous people… This is a unique rallying of diverse interests and cultures behind one candidate in the history of our country. And that includes people who don’t normally vote and who, along with everyone else, are going to lead us to victory and nothing else.”
In Indiana, where she is a city councilwoman in the small town of Chesterton, Democrat Erin Collins says she feels the same fervor. The movement is illustrated by the growing number of people who have been knocking on the party’s door in recent weeks to take part in the campaign. “When Joe Biden was here, you didn’t see anyone,” she says. “And that’s what gives us hope now that we can more easily envisage a victory.”
“This convention leaves us with something very encouraging,” says Brenda Brathwaite, a former school principal and member of the Massachusetts delegation in Chicago this week. “But we have to be careful in the face of a Republican Party that has demonstrated its ability to interfere with the electoral process. Republicans have worked hard since their 2020 defeat to change the electoral maps to their advantage and keep as many people as possible away from the polls. »
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Republican petition to block more than 41,000 Arizona voters from casting ballots in November. The state was won by Joe Biden in 2020 by a slim margin of 11,000 votes. “They’re not interested in a fair election. They just want to win,” Brathwaite concluded.
This report was funded with support from the Transat International Journalism Fund- Le Devoir.