So far, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago has been a healing balm after the anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ, anti-women dystopian affair that Republicans staged last month in Milwaukee. Monday night's speakers — including former U.S. senator and secretary of state Hillary Clinton, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, women who spoke about their reproductive crises, and even Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who borrowed star player Stephen Curry's "night night" move to express how he feels about former President and current Republican nominee Donald Trump — delivered a unified message that the country must vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in November. Clinton, the party's 2016 nominee who narrowly lost the Electoral College to Trump (she won the popular vote by almost 66 million votes, nearly three million more than Trump), lit into the former president, telling a prime time audience that Democrats now have him "on the run" against Harris.
As a former prosecutor, Harris "locked up murderers and drug traffickers. She will never rest in defense of our freedom and safety," Clinton said. "Donald Trump fell asleep at his own trial. And when he woke up, he made his own kind of history — the first person to run for president with 34 felony convictions."
And, of course, President Joe Biden, who selflessly decided to withdraw from the race and endorse Harris only a month ago, received a long standing ovation before he gave a fiery speech that touted the Biden-Harris administration's many accomplishments while also passing the torch to his vice president. While his speech was long — and the convention ran late, pushing it out of primetime on the East Coast — it was important that those in the United Center and watching at home heard about all of the things the administration has done in one term. Biden mentioned lowering the price of insulin for seniors, creating jobs, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and gave a nod to the LGBTQ community. "And here's what else I believe in protecting — your freedom ... your freedom to love who you love," the president said.
And Biden's right that a Harris-Walz administration will continue many of those policies.
The convention's first night also featured up and coming Democratic stars, and we were impressed with Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York), who injected energy into her speech. One of the founding members of "the Squad," a group of progressive lawmakers, Ocasio-Cortez showed why she's the smartest of the bunch and has grown while in office. Despite Trump's many efforts to portray himself as a supporter of the working class, Ocasio-Cortez has seen right through that fantasy. He would "sell this country for a dollar if it meant lining his own pockets and greasing the palms of his Wall Street friends," she said. Ocasio-Cortez also clapped back at Republicans who say she should go back to tending bar. She said she'd be happy to "any day of the week, because there is nothing wrong with working for a living."
But more importantly, Ocasio-Cortez was one of the speakers who pointed out the obvious. "In the next 78 days we must pour every ounce, every minute, every moment into making history on November 5," she said. "But we cannot send Kamala and Tim to the White House alone. Together, we must also elect strong Democratic majorities in the House and Senate so we can deliver an ambitious agenda for the people."
And that's the point. While Harris has reset the presidential race in terms of being nearly even or ahead of Trump in battleground states, according to recent public polls, it's Democratic control of Congress that is also key. The party has an uphill climb to keep the Senate, mainly because West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin (who has no party affiliation but caucuses with Democrats after leaving his longtime party earlier this year) is not seeking reelection and that seat will almost certainly go red. Montana is another danger zone, as Democratic incumbent Senator Jon Tester is in a real fight against a wealthy Republican in a reliably red state. There are other close Senate races in Ohio, Arizona, and Nevada that Democrats must win.
Then, there is this reality check from the leader of a pro-Harris super PAC. Chauncey McLean, the president of Future Forward, told Reuters that their own surveys show a less "rosy" picture and that Democrats face much closer races in key states.
McLean said Pennsylvania remains the most consequential state in the group's analysis, and he called its Senate race a "coin flip" based on its polls, the news service reported. He said that Harris must win one of three states — Pennsylvania, North Carolina, or Georgia — to win the White House.
And he warned that Harris has yet to fully rebuild the Biden coalition of Blacks, Hispanics, and young voters that brought him the White House in 2020, Reuters reported.
McLean also said polling shows the public wants more detailed policy positions from Harris. That is likely to come soon, and in fact started last Friday when Harris spoke about her economic policy, which is aimed at lowering costs for American families. Those include a plan to reduce medical debt for millions of Americans, a cap on prescription drug costs, a $25,000 subsidy for first-time homebuyers, and a child tax credit that would provide $6,000 per child to families for the first year of a baby's life, as the Washington Post reported. Harris is also calling for restoring the Biden administration's child tax credit that expired at the end of 2021, the paper reported. That raised the benefit for most families from $2,000 per child to $3,000.
Harris only started her presidential campaign last month, and it has been a whirlwind as people get to know her. Democrats, however, can't get complacent because of the large enthusiastic crowds she's getting at campaign rallies — to the utter consternation of Trump. This race is still very close. And while Trump may be "on the run," as Clinton said, he's not backing down, nor are his MAGA supporters. Long after this week's convention is over, the hard work begins to sustain the momentum until Election Day. And voters cannot forget the congressional races that will determine how much a Harris-Walz administration can accomplish.
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