Kamala Harris has momentum. Will it last past the 'honeymoon' phase?

Mike Bebernes

Vice President Kamala Harris has been riding a wave of momentum since replacing President Biden as the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

In just over two weeks, she appears to have erased Biden’s polling deficit against former President Donald Trump and even become — by a very small margin — the favorite to win the election.

Her emergence on the top of the ticket helped her campaign raise $310 million in donations in July, more than double what Trump’s campaign brought in that month. Polls also show that the energy of the campaign has shifted. The share of Democratic voters who say they will definitely vote has jumped four points since Biden dropped out of the race while the share of GOP voters who say the same has dipped slightly.

Harris has clearly shaken Democrats from the malaise that had hung over their party as they wrestled with questions over Biden’s candidacy. The question that may decide the 2024 election is whether Harris can sustain this momentum, or even build on it, after the “honeymoon” phase is over.

“Keeping momentum is the cheese in the enchilada — it’s the whole ball game,” a former Democratic National Committee official told Politico. Many Democrats are hopeful that the enthusiasm around Harris is “here to stay” even though they acknowledge that they “have to be ready” for a Republican counteroffensive that will undoubtedly come. Their confidence is rooted both in their faith in Harris’s ability to highlight the contrast between herself and Trump as well as the GOP’s struggles to find a potent line of attack against her — most pointedly highlighted by Trump’s deeply controversial comments questioning her racial background last week.

But others aren’t so convinced. “This kind of giddy elation is not gonna be very helpful much longer,” veteran Democratic strategist James Carville warned on MSNBC. In the eyes of skeptics from both sides of the aisle, most of the excitement currently around Harris comes from the fact that she’s anyone other than Biden, who most Democratic voters believed was too old to serve a second term. They argue that the shine around Harris will start to fade once the campaign becomes focused on her specifically and Republicans have a chance to hone their messaging against her. Her critics on the right also accuse her of ducking any real scrutiny from the press, which they say she can’t keep up forever.

It remains to be seen whether Harris's choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who she named as her running mate on Tuesday, will provide another boost of energy to her campaign. Democrats will also hope to stay on the front foot with their party convention in Chicago later this month.

Her surge shows no signs of falling apart

“Barack Obama deliberately, painstakingly put new constituencies together. He created a movement. It had fervor and energy. What we may see this year is something different — that a movement created Kamala Harris. That is, the old constituencies held, maintained fervor and rose again when Mr. Biden stepped aside and Ms. Harris was put on top. I’m not sure we’ve seen that before.” — Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal

Trump is going to find lines of attack that really land

“The Trump campaign was caught off guard by the quick consolidation of support for the vice president, but Democrats need to prepare for a full-throated attack. MAGA Republicans won’t go down without a fight.” — Michael Steele, MSNBC

Trump’s mistakes will keep Harris riding high

“[Trump] thrives on being the center of attention and uses provocative statements to maintain media focus. Analysts suggesting that Kamala Harris has the momentum right now likely adds to his urgency to shift the conversation back to himself, underscoring his competitive nature and desire to remain a central figure in political discourse.” — Craig Agranoff, political communications research at Florida Atlantic University, to Newsweek

Her past liberal positions may start to catch up to her

“She — like many of the candidates in [the 2020 presidential] race — tacked sharply to the left, to be more in line with Democratic primary voters. … Now those positions could come back to haunt her.” — Anthony Zurcher, BBC

She’s going to have to make her case for herself at some point

“Ultimately, until Harris is forced to develop a comprehensive agenda and policy platform, it is impossible to determine how much of her early success is due to a honeymoon — and Democrats catching their breath after the emotionally charged debates over Biden’s candidacy — versus a sustainable strategy.” — Douglas Schoen, Orange County Register

Harris only needs to keep this up for a little longer

“Scratch most Republican strategists right now, and you’ll unleash a torrent of skepticism about Harris’s prospects. But they never expected her boffo debut. How long will they underestimate her? She only needs 100 days.” — E.J. Dionne, Washington Post

The enthusiasm gap may mean the polls are overstating her momentum

“It's an open question whether that will last. As the new nominee, Harris may be enjoying a honeymoon period, and an amped-up Democratic base may be more likely to respond to surveys than Republicans — a phenomenon known as differential partisan nonresponse. It's also possible that the initial boost of enthusiasm she has received will fade over time.” — G. Elliott Morris, ABC News

The media is showing no signs of ending their love affair with Harris

“Aside from effervescent enthusiasm for her brand candidacy and a lot of fanboying and girling, the media are doing some heavy lifting on substantive things — actively helping her reshape her record and hide who she really is, just as she’s being reintroduced to the country. Conscientious journalists wouldn’t do any of this, but people do crazy things when they’re in love.” — Tim Murtaugh, Washington Times

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