The desperation at the heart of the Harris candidacy

Barack Obama wrote The Audacity of Hope. The Kamala Harris story of 2024 could be called The Audacity of Desperation. Her brief candidacy has been an awesome display of chutzpah. With just weeks to go before the election, a panicked Democratic Party pushed aside their failing commander-in-chief and replaced him with Harris, the distinctly unpopular vice-president.

She was then shamelessly presented to America and the world as an agent of change, even though she has no clear vision or agenda of her own. Twelve days have passed since Kamala Harris accepted the nomination and still her campaign website offers no clues as to what she might do as president. She has made some noises that sound a bit like policies. She’ll protect abortion. She’ll build millions of houses and give first-time home buyers $25,000. She’ll tackle “price-gouging” businesses. She’ll give tax breaks to the struggling middle class and fund it through raising corporation tax. The details of how and when are left unsaid. The message to voters? Just don’t listen too closely.

She has made some noises that sound a bit like policies

So far, though, that seems to be working. If polls are to be believed, she’s nudging ahead of Donald Trump nationally and in key swing states such as Wisconsin and Michigan. The “enthusiasm” gap between the Democratic candidate and Donald Trump has turned in her favor, though the extent to which that is down to sheer relief that Joe Biden is no longer running is a matter of debate. 

Presidential elections tend to be hard to be predict: since Harris’s elevation, it’s become hard to even make an educated guess. A snap campaign such as hers can’t really be measured against the Trump campaign, which has effectively been running for eight years. Things become even more difficult when the candidate is not really new but a continuation of an existing administration. 

It is daring to be so vague in public, and Harris’s ambiguity is partly what makes her campaign difficult to write off. Certainly, Donald Trump can’t seem to decide whether to attack her for being fresh threat — Kamala the Communist! — or a carry-on of the Biden administration. 

But pop-up campaigns are surely like pop-up businesses. They tend to pop down if the candidate, or product, isn’t the phenomenon people want her to be. It all feels too desperate.

There are already signs that Harris’s momentum is slowing. She hasn’t enjoyed a substantial poll bounce after her convention in Chicago two weeks ago. Her sit-down interview with CNN wasn’t a disaster, but it hardly addressed concerns that she lacks substance. The markets are jittering again, which undermines the idea that “Bidenomics,” which Harris seems likely to continue implementing, is working. The dominant pro-Democratic media will ensure she continues to enjoy glowing coverage, but we are now reaching the crunch end of the election cycle and all the spin in the world can’t disguise the fact that Harris was made the nominee because she isn’t Joe Biden. If she wins, it will be because she isn’t Donald Trump.

In his convention speech two weeks ago, Obama acknowledged that the Harris honeymoon couldn’t last. “For all the incredible energy we’ve been able to generate over the last few weeks,” he said, “for all the rallies and the memes, this will still be a tight race in a closely divided country — a country where too many Americans are still struggling.” That was an implicit admission that Harris hasn’t proved herself. She’ll have a chance to do that on the debate stage in Philadelphia on Tuesday. If she fails, the desperation that brought about her campaign will become all too obvious.

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.