The New Yorker:

At the Democratic National Convention, the sense of relief was as overwhelming as the general euphoria—but the campaign against Donald Trump has only just begun.

By Jonathan Blitzer

On the second night of the Democratic National Convention, in Chicago, Kamala Harris suddenly appeared on the jumbotron at the United Center. Many in the audience seemed momentarily confused—the candidate, who had already made a surprise appearance the night before, wasn’t due back onstage until later in the week. Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, were being beamed in from the Fiserv Forum, in Milwaukee, where they were holding a rally for more than fifteen thousand supporters. “I’ll see you in two days, Chicago,” Harris said, with a wave. If a nominating Convention is traditionally a pep rally for the superfans, the Democrats were turning it into a popularity contest. Fiserv Forum was the site of the Republican National Convention, where, in July, Donald Trump officially became his party’s nominee. In a single night—four weeks into her Presidential campaign and less than three months before Election Day—Harris was filling two stadiums.

Can the excitement last? Harris, the Vice-President of a historically unpopular incumbent, is an improbable change candidate. And yet in both arenas last week, the sense of relief was as overwhelming as the general euphoria. Barely a month earlier, with President Joe Biden clinging to a failing candidacy, internal polls put the chances of a Democratic victory in the single digits. Now those odds are roughly even. In Chicago, it was both revealing and understandable that the enthusiasm was greatest when Biden stayed out of view. He delivered a knotty, emotional speech on Monday, at once a testament to all he had achieved as President and a reminder that it wasn’t enough. Many of the speakers addressed him graciously; one of the week’s refrains was “Thank you, Joe.” But if the Democrats were proud of Biden for his historic abdication, they were prouder still of themselves for accomplishing what the Republicans, who remained in thrall to their doddering candidate, had failed to do.

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