- There are 100 days left until Election Day.
- It's almost certain that Kamala Harris will face off in a fierce battle against Donald Trump on November 5th.
- The 2024 presidential elections have seen major political upheaval and are not over yet.
There are 100 days until Election Day, and if last month's election results are any indication, we'll be in for a chaotic battle to the finish line between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
Past presidential elections in the United States have been turbulent, but one in particular was when incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson was dropped from the Democratic Party primary in 1968 amid rising tensions over the response to the Vietnam War.
However, this year's contest was a completely different race than ever before.
President Joe Biden's decision last week to drop out of the 2024 presidential race threatened to throw the Democratic Party into disarray. But under Biden's leadership, Democrats have swiftly rallied behind Harris, both in enthusiasm for her historic candidacy and the reality that there will be no 2020 rematch in November, something voters have long said they don't want.
Biden's announcement came about a month after a disastrous debate performance in June that raised concerns about Biden's age and fitness to campaign in the final months of the campaign. For weeks, Biden's supporters, one by one, called for him to step down. That was followed by an assassination attempt on Trump's behalf as he tried to rally his supporters ahead of the Republican National Convention.
While Harris is almost certain to be the Democratic presidential nominee, voters won't know for sure until at least early next month, when Democrats cast their ballots virtually ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Until then, all eyes will be on who she chooses as her running mate.
Meanwhile, the Trump camp's confidence in a landslide victory has suddenly turned to panic as Biden retreats and Harris solidifies her support among Democratic leaders.
Trump's choice of running mate has made matters worse. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio initially thrilled Republicans with his choice to defy all efforts at balancing the candidates and nominate a MAGA successor. But Vance's debut has been so shaky that some Republicans worry about his influence on the shortlist.
The 2024 election race has shifted dramatically several times recently, and it's impossible to predict what will happen in the coming months. Here's a look at where the race is now and what's likely to happen next.
Harris forges new path to victory
Harris has been showing momentum in early polls since entering the race.
The latest New York Times/Siena College poll showed the vice president effectively resetting the race, closing Biden's widening polling gap against Trump. A poll released last week showed Trump leading Harris by one point, 48% to 47%, among likely voters. A previous Times/Siena College poll showed Trump leading Biden by 49% to 43% among likely voters.
A Wall Street Journal poll shows the national race is close, with Trump leading Harris 49% to 47%. Trump had previously shown a 6-point lead over Biden. A CNN-SSRS poll also showed the race within the margin of error.
But the best news for the vice president comes further down the data.
Ms Harris is outperforming Mr Biden among Black and Latino voters, an improvement that could significantly improve Democrats' path to winning the 270 electoral votes.
Before Biden's withdrawal, Democrats' best hope seemed to be to win sweeps of the so-called “blue wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania while retaining Nebraska's Omaha-area 2nd Congressional District.
This left Biden with very little room for error. Warning signs in states like Virginia and New Hampshire are worrying for the Biden campaign, and there are even fears that Minnesota and New Mexico could also tilt to Trump if things go wrong.
If Harris can hold onto her support among black voters, it could lead to more competitive states like North Carolina where Democrats want to make inroads. She could also do well in Georgia, a state Biden narrowly won in 2020.
Ms. Harris's strength in the Sun Belt means Democrats may not need to bet everything on the “blue wall,” and there are early signs of relief in New Hampshire, where a recent Saint Anselm College poll puts Ms. Harris ahead of Mr. Trump by 6 points.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has sought to get ahead of the changes.
Her campaign is confident that this is just a “honeymoon” period for Harris, a blip on the rise, but with so little time left until Election Day, she has several opportunities to generate more enthusiasm. She will likely nominate her vice president in early August. The Democratic National Convention is on August 19, and there are debates scheduled for September, one month before the election.
It's unclear how much the convention will favor Harris. In 2000, Vice President Al Gore saw a big surge in his approval ratings after his campaign against then-Governor George W. Bush. But in recent years, the spikes have been less dramatic. In 2020, neither Biden nor Trump saw a big surge in their approval ratings after their conventions. But Biden maintained a steady lead nationally throughout his campaign.
Strong early poll numbers are a great sign for the vice president, but they're not the only indicator of momentum. Since Biden dropped out, Harris' campaign has raised more than $126 million, including more than 1.4 million small donors. That's a historic pace that will no doubt ensure Harris' campaign is well-funded until the end.
Trump's running mate is in an interesting situation
The choice of a vice presidential candidate is by no means guaranteed to help a presidential candidate win a state, but it should at least avoid hurting the vice presidential candidate's chances of winning.
Vance is off to a tough start, already recording the lowest approval ratings of any vice presidential candidate.
The first-term Republican has faced intense criticism over past comments he made criticizing “childfree, cat-loving women,” a label he exacerbated when he applied to Harris, who married Vice President Doug Emhoff in 2014 and is co-parent to two teenagers.
By choosing Vance, Trump has abandoned his traditional strategy.
Typically, presidential candidates choose running mates who provide a regional or ideological balance. Mike Pence, for example, signaled Trump's desire to appeal to traditional conservatives in 2016. Some of Trump's advisers urged the president to choose a more diverse candidate. Instead, Trump chose a like-minded conservative as his running mate.
Vance, 39, would be the first millennial to serve as vice president and the first military veteran to run for president since then-Arizona Sen. John McCain was the Republican presidential nominee in 2008.
Vance was expected to help Trump appeal to white working-class voters in battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, but the Ohio Republican has only campaigned once so far and performed significantly worse in the 2022 Senate race than other Ohio Republicans who ran that year.
Harris' nomination as vice presidential candidate could shake things up even further.
Harris is likely to pick a vice president who can help swing battleground states to her side – a move that worries Republicans given Trump's struggles with suburban voters and many independents' reluctance to support him for a third presidential term.
According to Bloomberg, Harris' leading contenders include Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota.
Other potential vice presidential candidates include Governors Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, as well as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
A wild card candidate such as former Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond, who is reportedly under scrutiny as a possible candidate, could also be considered.
Ms. Harris is likely to prioritize a running mate with a track record of winning battleground states, which wouldn't secure a state's electoral votes but could be vital to winning over undecided voters to her in a race where every vote counts.
The candidates at the top of Harris' shortlist each have their own strengths: Kelly, a former Navy fighter pilot and astronaut, has the appeal to bolster support for the Democratic candidate in heavily Republican Arizona; Shapiro is highly regarded as a must-win governor for Democrats; and Walz, a former congressman, could help attract Midwestern voters in key states like Michigan and Wisconsin.
With Biden out of the race, Democrats will likely try to pin the party's future on Harris' candidacy — and the fight against Trump — hope their candidate can present himself as a mainstream option in a sometimes erratic and seemingly endless campaign that's just a few months away.
