\n<\/p>\n
In Philadelphia and Houston, in Milwaukee and Atlanta, adoring crowds of Democrats always answer yes. The call-and-response is a joyful affirmation of the Harris-Walz campaign: that the American dream is still alive, if not well, and a more perfect union is possible\u2014together we can preserve and protect a multiracial liberal democracy in a world full of autocratic threats.<\/p>\n
But that crowd-pleasing line was not a new addition when Harris became the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee in the most unusual of ways. Long before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed his VP, Harris had been posing the question to rallygoers in Manassas, Virginia; in Phoenix; in Jacksonville, Florida. Without knowing it, she had been rehearsing for this fall\u2019s general election campaign for years.<\/em><\/p>\n Then came the Summer of Kamala<\/a>. It \u201cmarked the moment Democrats stopped playing defense and went on offense, figured out how to put Donald Trump\u2019s campaign on its heels, and never looked back,\u201d Mallory McMorrow told me. McMorrow is the Michigan state senate\u2019s majority whip, and so, given Michigan\u2019s swing-state status, she is a regular on cable news assessing the state of play. She said that thousands of new Michigander volunteers, and even some pop-up homemade merch stands, were tangible signs of the summertime spike. But even more notable to McMorrow was what she called \u201cthe renewed energy in our more dedicated organizers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey were always going to do the work, but it started to feel like an obligation, one that was getting harder and harder no matter how much we believed,\u201d she said. \u201cNow it\u2019s an opportunity and a joy every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n Joy.<\/em> It is one of the most intoxicating three-letter words in the English language. The Harris campaign of joy<\/a> connected with people who had all but given up on Biden. During the final weeks of summer, the \u201cKamala bump\u201d was suddenly apparent everywhere: in polls, grassroots donations, television ratings, news subscriptions. Harris\u2019s 2019 memoir, The Truths We Hold,<\/em> climbed back onto the New York Times<\/em>\u2019 bestseller list and stayed there week after week. Billboard<\/em> reported that \u201cHarris-connected pop songs\u201d like Chappell Roan\u2019s \u201cFemininomenon\u201d<\/a> and Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s \u201cFreedom\u201d experienced streaming spikes. Politico referred to the bump in a piece that predicted a spike in women running for elective office. Trump confidant Kellyanne Conway even acknowledged it, backhandedly, when she said \u201cthe Kamala bump was a direct cause from the Biden slump.\u201d<\/p>\n Campaign stories were instantly hot again. Social media influencers were eager to catch up and cash in. So were old-line media companies: The Washington Post,<\/em> in desperate need of a boost, said the July and August stretch that coincided with the Democratic ticket revamp was its first \u201csustained period\u201d of positive subscriber growth in three years. CNN (where I now work as chief media analyst) garnered more than 6 million viewers for Harris and Tim Walz\u2019s first joint interview.<\/p>\n \u201cWe came into 2024,\u201d MSNBC contributor Errin Haines said, \u201cwith an unprecedented election that also felt very status quo\u2014until it suddenly wasn\u2019t.\u201d Haines, editor at large for The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom covering gender, politics, and policy, pointed out that the electorate was \u201cahead of the establishment\u201d for the first half of the year. In poll after poll, focus group after focus group, voters signaled that Biden was too old to serve a second term. That\u2019s why, in the minds of so many, the Democrats needed to recast their lead actor.<\/p>\n \u201cWe go through this all the time,\u201d a veteran Hollywood producer groused to me a few days after Biden\u2019s disastrous debate performance made his exit inevitable. Showrunners and financiers hate the recasting process, but \u201cwe do it because it works,\u201d the producer pointed out. Actors come and actors go for the good of the show.<\/p>\n