Harris takes star turn at Democratic convention

CHICAGO — Kamala Harris was scheduled to give the most important speech of her political life on Thursday as she accepts the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago after a historic turnaround in the 2024 White House race.

 

The 59-year-old US vice president would have focused on joyful "vibes" after electrifying her party in the space of a single heady month since President Joe Biden dropped out of the election.

 

Now Harris would tell her personal story to the American people, using her televised address to the Democratic National Convention to contrast her optimism with the darker tone of Republican Donald Trump.

 

"When Kamala gets on stage we're not going to stop. It's going to blow the roof off," said Amanda Taylor, a 47-year-old delegate from Missouri.

 

Yet while Democrats' hopes are soaring and as Harris edges ahead in the polls, they know the battle is far from won.

 

From Barack and Michelle Obama to Bill Clinton, senior figures have warned all week that Harris has a brutal fight on her hands hands to beat the 78-year-old Trump.

 

The sheer speed of her astonishing rise to the top of the ticket also means Harris remains an unknown quantity to many US voters.

 

A trailblazer as the first woman, Black and South Asian vice president in US history -- and now bidding to become its first woman president -- her role has largely kept her in the background the last four years.

 

'Fight for freedom'

 

Harris would seek to remedy that in her speech. She will talk about how she was raised by a working mother and knows the challenges facing families hit by inflation, a campaign official said on condition of anonymity.

 

She would then contrast her optimistic vision for America's future against what her campaign calls Trump's dark, conservative ideas for a second term in the Oval Office, the official said.

 

Speaker after speaker has focused on the idea of freedom during the Democratic convention, as the party targets what it says are Republican plans to further limit abortion and clamp down on democratic institutions.

 

On Wednesday, Harris's energetic running mate Tim Walz formally accepted the party's nomination saying that "Kamala Harris is going to stand up and fight for your freedom to live the life that you want to lead."

 

But Harris has been short on policy announcements since taking over as Democratic standard-bearer, particularly when it comes to the economy, a key issue in the election.

 

Harris had to take advantage of her first major speech in a presidential setting as "you don't get a second chance to make a first impression," political analyst Larry Sabato told AFP.

 

'Kamala vibes'

 

"Voters already have the Kamala vibes. Now they need the Kamala agenda," said Sabato, a professor at the University of Virginia. A lack of economic policy "can defeat her faster than the border," he added.

 

But when it comes to vibes, the Democrats were in full on celebration mode.

 

Under Harris, the Democrats are unrecognisable from the party that was steeped in despair after 81-year-old Biden's a catastrophic debate performance against Trump.

 

Former president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle raised the roof in Chicago on Tuesday, with the ex-first lady declaring that under Harris "hope is making a comeback."

 

On Wednesday former president Bill Clinton, television personality Oprah Winfrey and musicians Stevie Wonder and John Legend were the warm-up acts for Walz.

 

Biden's farewell address on Monday, when Harris made a surprise appearance on stage to give him a hug, already seems like a distant memory.

 

If the transition has been head-spinning for Biden and the Democrats, it has completely unsettled Trump.

 

In a rollercoaster summer he has survived an assassination attempt, and then seen what he thought was certain victory turned on its head by a new and far younger appearance.

 

Trump will be in Arizona on the Mexican border on Thursday to push Harris's weak spot on the issue of illegal immigration.