Winners And Losers From Day 4 Of The DNC

Vice President Kamala Harris had only four weeks ahead of the Democratic convention to secure support for the nomination and select a running mate after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Now Harris has just 73 days to convince voters she’s a better option to lead the country than former President Donald Trump.
Harris made history Thursday, becoming only the second woman and the first Black and South Asian American woman in the country to accept a major party presidential nomination.
Her acceptance speech was the final act of a four-day convention that breathed new life into the Democratic Party following a month of turmoil and uncertainty after Biden decided to end his bid for a second term.
With both party conventions in the rearview mirror, Harris and Trump will now have a two-month sprint to Election Day in November.
Here are winners and losers from the fourth and final night of the Democratic convention in Chicago.
Kamala Harris
Harris delivered a sharp critique of Trump in her acceptance speech, arguing that he should not be allowed to return to the White House after his efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat.
“In many ways Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious,” Harris said.
“Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails,” Harris added.
The vice president portrayed herself as a pragmatic leader with foreign policy experience — a message aimed at winning over independents and moderate Republicans and pushing back against the Trump campaign’s efforts to paint her as a radical leftist.
Harris also laid out what she said were the freedoms at stake in the election, including access to abortion. Harris painted Republicans as extreme in their support for a nationwide ban on abortion, saying that on the issue “simply put, they are out of their minds.”
Harris had her work cut out for her Thursday. She had to follow electrifying speeches by Barack and Michelle Obama earlier in the convention. Harris also had to balance her own message while paying tribute to Biden, who spoke on the first night of the convention.
The vice president’s speech had little in the way of specific policy details, but that seemed beside the point to a convention crowd that hung on Harris’ every word. Though Harris herself didn’t dwell much on her history-making nomination it wasn’t lost on the party faithful. The United Center was filled with women in white pantsuits, the color worn by women during the suffragette movement.
The blended Harris-Emhoff family
The convention put a spotlight on Harris and her husband Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s blended family. The vice president’s sister Maya Harris was a featured speaker Thursday night, and Emhoff’s adult children also made appearances throughout the week, giving millions of Americans a window into the next potential first family.
Democrats used the convention to hold up Harris and Emhoff’s blended family as an example of modern 21st century life in America — and to draw an explicit contrast with Republicans and Trump’s running mate Sen. J.D. Vance. Since becoming the GOP vice presidential nominee Vance has drawn criticism for past comments and views about family life and his attacks on people without children.
End of the Biden era
Biden received a warm farewell Monday on the first night of the convention. He was greeted with a prolonged standing ovation at the start of his keynote speech and interrupted frequently with chants of “Thank You Joe.” Democratic officials touted his accomplishments in office, and Obama and former President Bill Clinton argued that in dropping out of the 2024 race Biden enhanced his legacy by choosing to put the country above his own political ambitions.
Still, it was a difficult moment for Biden, who only two months ago was the party’s presumptive nominee with no plans to abandon his bid for a second term in the White House.
Biden was reluctant to leave the race after his poor debate performance in late June raised questions about his age and mental acuity. Biden resisted mounting pressure from Democrats to leave the race for weeks before finally giving in last month.
Future historians may judge Biden kindly for passing the torch to Harris, as Obama and Clinton suggested. But in the short term Biden lost out on the chance for another four years in the White House. Biden did not stick around to watch Harris accept the nomination. He left Chicago for a family vacation in California as soon as he finished the last major political speech of his career.
Policy substance
The convention did its job of energizing the Democratic Party base. But it didn’t offer Democrats — or any other voters — much in the way of a substantive policy platform.
Part of that had to do with the unusual circumstances surrounding Harris’ ascension to the top of the ticket. Presidential nominees typically enter the summer convention with a well-defined policy agenda crafted over many months of campaigning. Harris was given an unusually short timeline after Biden left the race.
The internal Democratic Party turmoil over the past month left little room for in-depth policy work. The Harris campaign stumbled with one of its first policy rollouts ahead of the convention — a proposal to end taxes on service workers’ tips that drew criticism for mirroring a similar Trump campaign plan.
Nominating conventions are always more of a party for the party than a serious policy debate. Harris did lay out her policy vision in broad strokes Thursday, but now she has less than three months left to fill in the details.