Washington, United States.– The campaign for the US presidential election enters this Sunday its final hundred days, deeply shaken by the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and the abrupt departure of the president Joe Biden of the career.
After weeks of infighting and doubts about Biden’s candidacy, Democrats’ unity behind the vice president Kamala Harris has reshaped a race hitherto dominated by Trump.
“We are the outsiders (…) that’s true, but this is a grassroots campaign,” said the new Democratic candidate on Saturday during a fundraising event in Pittsfield, Massachusetts (northeast).
That same evening, in front of a crowd of supporters gathered at a hockey stadium in Minnesota (north), his Republican rival stated that “in November, the American people are going to reject the crazy, progressive extremism of Kamala Harris in an overwhelming way.”
While American election campaigns typically last almost two years, the 2024 election campaign has just begun again, making it the shortest in modern American history.
The 59-year-old former senator and the 78-year-old ex-president will face off on Nov. 5 in an election that will largely rest with 100,000 voters in a handful of key states, Republican strategist Matt Terrill said.
“These are independent and undecided voters. Inflation, immigration, the economy and crime are the issues that concern them,” Terrill told BBC News.
“I think former President Trump is doing pretty well on those issues. This election will be a referendum.” on the performance of those in power, “which are Biden and Harris. We’ll see how it plays out,” he added.
The next big moment for the Democratic camp will be the mid-August convention, which promises to be a big celebration of the party’s new standard-bearer.
Harris is taking off on the back of a record-breaking fundraising drive in recent days and a renewed mobilization of the Democratic base following Biden’s withdrawal.
This is a situation that contrasts sharply with that of just a month ago.
An unprecedented confrontation
Beset by voter concerns about his age and physical and mental abilities, Biden, 81, was at a significant disadvantage to Trump. His poor performance in the June 27 debate finally convinced Democratic leaders who had previously supported him that a change of candidate was necessary.
In the Republican camp, the dynamic was the opposite.
The party convention this month was a great show of strength and unity around Trump, who had miraculously escaped an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania shortly before.
Harris’s emergence changed the landscape somewhat. The void left by Biden’s withdrawal was quickly filled by the first vice president of the United States with black roots and South Asian origin.
On July 23, just two days after being nominated to represent the ruling party in the electoral contest, Harris held the largest public event of the Democratic campaign. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has raised $200 million since emerging as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee last week.
The campaign, which announced its latest fundraising totals on Sunday, said the bulk of the donations (66%) came from first-time contributors in the 2024 election cycle and were made after President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the race.
Despite this development, Democrats still have a long way to go to improve their prospects of victory.
“Before long, Harris’s ‘honeymoon’ will be over and voters will once again focus on her role as Biden’s partner and co-pilot,” Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio wrote in a memo.
Democratic strategist James Carville told MSNBC that Democrats should stop celebrating and prepare for the coming storm.
A similar warning was issued by former President Barack Obama, who believes that Democrats remain “outsiders” who must regain the trust of the electorate.
Source: AFP