From hype to hope: Can Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump?

Kamala Harris was being a consummate host. It was just after midday in Washington, and the US vice president was standing on a makeshift stage in one of the city’s grandest dining halls, raising her glass to toast Australia.

Next to her was Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the guest of honour in a three-course luncheon filled with dignitaries and diplomats marking the last day of his whirlwind state visit to the nation’s capital.

As attendees in the famed Benjamin Franklin Dining Room feasted on grouper risotto and deconstructed pumpkin pie, Harris turned to Albanese and thanked him for Australia’s support over successive governments and US administrations.

“Throughout our long and shared history and throughout the Biden-Harris administration, Australia has been a true and steadfast friend to the United States,” she told him.

“I know we will strengthen the relationship in the months and years ahead.”

What Harris or anyone else at that October 2023 lunch could not have expected was the Biden-Harris administration would last for only a single term, thanks to the president himself abandoning his re-election bid after imploding on a debate stage against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

But fast-forward to the present day, and America’s first female vice president is now Trump’s new challenger – and is once again on the cusp of making history if she wins the White House.

It’s a remarkable shift for Harris after years of approval ratings that were worse than Biden’s, relentless Republican attacks over her policy performance, as well as scepticism – including within her own party – about who she is or what she stands for.

Indeed, even a few weeks ago, when it was clear that Biden’s days were numbered, many Democrats remained unconvinced that Harris could overcome her past missteps – let alone the brutal reality of racism and sexism in America – to beat Trump.

Some, such as former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, initially suggested there should be an open process to find a replacement for the president, which could give greater authority to whoever became the Democratic nominee. Others argued, albeit privately, for a mini-primary so as not to “risk” Harris getting the nomination by default.

“If you think that there is consensus among the people who want Joe Biden to leave, that they will support Vice President Harris, you would be mistaken,” Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a social media post two days before the president pulled out of the race.

“They’re not going to be fully honest, but I’m going to be honest for them.”

The question now is whether the newly rebooted Harris can sustain the Kamala-mentum or if it will fizzle out before election day on November 5.

Veteran GOP political consultant Christopher Nicholas acknowledges that Harris has “had a great honeymoon” but adds that much can happen in the final three-month stretch of the campaign.

“She hasn’t answered one question from the press yet and, at all times, she’s been speaking from a teleprompter or from written notes – and that could continue all the way to the Democratic National Convention,” says Nicholas, who runs the firm Eagle Consulting.

“I can understand why they are keeping her a little shielded, as she’s shown herself to not be particularly good at those unscripted moments as vice president. But we now have all the candidates chosen, so, as they say in old Sherlock Holmes novels, ‘the game’s afoot’.”

For now, Harris is riding high. Polls showed her pulling ahead of Trump for the first time and taking a three-point national lead over the once-dominant Republican.

Her presidential campaign also raised $US36 million ($55 million) in the 24 hours after she announced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her vice presidential pick in a vote of confidence for the 60-year-old former teacher, football coach, and National Guard veteran.

She has embraced rhetoric around freedom and the future distinct from Biden’s focus on preserving democracy – as a survey of her speeches shows.

And rallies that Harris and Walz headlined in the critical battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan drew up to 14,000 attendees each this week.

This prompted Trump to hit back in a bizarre hour-long press conference on Thursday, in which he claimed that the crowd for his now-infamous January 6 speech – which led to the riot at the US Capitol – was bigger than Martin Luther King Jr’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.

“Nobody has spoken to crowds bigger than me. If you look at Martin Luther King when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours ... we had more,” he insisted.

There’s no doubt the energy surrounding the new Democratic ticket has rattled the Trump campaign, which until a few weeks ago had been preparing for an election rematch with an 81-year-old president in cognitive decline.

But “Harris Hype” is not a new phenomenon within the Democratic Party – nor is the risk that it can dissipate quickly.

Note, for example, her ill-fated bid to run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. As a woman of many “firsts” – the first black woman to serve as San Francisco’s district attorney; the first to serve as California’s attorney-general; and the first American of South Asian descent elected as a senator – Harris’ first campaign for the White House began with plenty of excitement.

But after an initial and much-rehearsed “viral moment” – in which she called out Biden on the issue of race and segregation during a candidates’ debate in 2019 – she struggled to articulate what she stood for and ended up dropping out before the first primary contest in Iowa.

Critics have also sought to highlight the consistently high staff turnover in her office as a red flag. According to a recent report by government watchdog firm Open The Books, Harris had a 91 per cent staff turnover rate over the past four years and lost 24 of her employees between April last year and March this year.

“It is known in California, and it’s known in Washington – it is a heroic work environment if you work for her,” says former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy who, like Harris, hails from the so-called Golden State.

Supporters, however, argue that Harris has now had four years to sharpen her ground game. Her push to distinguish herself accelerated earlier this year, around the time that Special Prosecutor Robert Hur issued a scathing report describing Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.

Harris, 59, had already taken on a greater role, attacking Republicans over abortion rights following the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade. She had also embarked on several international tours – including trips to the 2022 APEC leaders’ summit in Thailand and the 2023 East Asian Summit in Indonesia, where she crossed paths with Albanese.

“We’ve spent some time together,” she joked during last year’s state luncheon.

But in recent months, as many Americans started losing enthusiasm for Biden, Harris began doing more to carve out her own lane.

She undertook a nationwide tour of US universities to mobilise young voters on issues such as abortion, gun violence, climate change and LGBTQ rights.

She invoked more of her personal story in speeches and began to talk more forcefully about race, reproductive freedom, and the war in Gaza.

And she continued to defend the president, even after the horrific debate that ultimately led to his demise.

“Today, she’s much more fortified and competent in who she is,” says Ashley Etienne, who worked as a former communications director for both Harris and Nancy Pelosi.

“She now has an incredible record that she can run on, and she’s in this unprecedented space where she’s not just a challenger, but she’s also an incumbent. This is now a direct contrast between the past and the future.”

In Philadelphia on Tuesday, when Harris introduced Walz to the world at their first swing state rally together – and where the Walz lit up the internet with his “Big Dad Energy” – ecstatic Democrats wholeheartedly agreed.

“We all remember the mess of those four years under Trump,” says New Yorker Zac Reedy, holding up a banner with the words “Kamala is Future” (a twist on UK pop star Charli XCX’S now iconic “Kamala is Brat” social media post.)

“We don’t want to return to that darkness, and Kamala Harris is bringing back the light.”

New Jersey local Dionna McCoy was equally enthusiastic as she made her way into the rally with friend Leleh Tekhna.

“I honest to God was losing hope in this election, and I feel like Kamala has restored my hope and my faith that we will have a strong candidate to take us forward,” McCoy says.

But is America finally ready to have a female leader – just as Australia had Julia Gillard, Britain had Margaret Thatcher and Germany had Angela Merkel?

“It’s long overdue,” says Eileen Fields, who hails from “Trump country” in northern Pennsylvania.

“And for folks who aren’t ready, I say: too bad. We represent over 50 per cent of the population, we have wisdom to bring to the table – and it’s about time.”

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