Seismic shift in the race

On 16 July, Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt during a rally in Pennsylvania. Two days later, he was given a rapturous hero’s welcome at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

He breezed through the Republican primary, managing even to turn damaging headlines about his conviction on 34 felony counts into campaign fundraising fodder, leaving his rival, US President Joe Biden, far behind in the polls even as the latter struggled to perk up his political base.

With old man Biden in the race, Trump was favored to clinch victory in the November polls, especially after the President’s dismal 27 June debate performance against Trump.

Bowing to pressure from even his close allies, President Biden on 21 July bowed out of the race and Kamala Harris stepped into the arena.

Almost instantly, there was a seismic shift in the US presidential race, evinced by an outpouring of support from Democrats, including donors for Harris, now certified as the Democratic presidential nominee, with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, and this has apparently rattled Trump and his campaign, putting the Republican nominee on the defensive for the first time in months.

Large crowds by the tens of thousands have been flocking to the Harris-Walz campaign rallies, an annoying matter for the rally crowd size-conscious Trump.

Since she was nominated the Democratic standard bearer, Harris has barnstormed through at least five battleground states, opening with a packed rally in Philadelphia of some 12,000 people on 6 August where she announced Walz as her choice for VP.

They then moved on to four other states before ending up in San Francisco on Sunday where donors, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and California Governor Gavin Newsom, as well as Dreamworks co-founder and Harris campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg, packed a fund-raising dinner at the Fairmont Hotel, paying at least $4,000 to as much as $500,000 for tickets. Total donations collected at that fundraiser went over $13 million.

Donations have poured in since she was endorsed by Biden, including $310 million in July alone, and $36 million when she announced Walz as her VP on 6 August.

US media reports that in the short time since President Biden withdrew and endorsed her as his replacement, Harris has significantly closed the gap in the polls.

Polls point to Harris taking a small lead over Trump. A New York Times/Siena College poll conducted last week showed Harris with 50 percent over Trump’s 46 percent of respondents’ votes.

This has only caused to intensify the GOP nominee’s attacks on Harris, hitting her ethnicity, calling her dumb, and mocking even the way she laughed — behavior that political observers even in his own camp say seem to suggest a meltdown.

“This is what you would call a public nervous breakdown,” said GOP strategist and a former Trump administration official, Matthew Bartlett. “This is a guy who cut through the Republican primary like a knife through butter, a guy who pummeled a semiconscious president in a debate and literally out of the (presidential) race.”

“And now,” said Bartlett, “we’re seeing a guy who cannot come to grips with a competitive presidential race that would require discipline and effective messaging. We’re seeing a candidate and campaign absolutely melting down.”

Noted strategist and crisis communication expert Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran of political campaigns in 14 countries and the US: “What would you do if you spent millions to defeat Joe Biden and suddenly, he’s not there?”

Pollsters say the current struggles of the GOP nominee may be temporary, just as enthusiasm for Harris may not last till November.

Still, for now, Trump’s and his campaign’s dour mood was unimaginable from a little more than two weeks ago.

Then, his upbeat spirit, particularly after surviving the assassin’s bullet, buoyed up the GOP’s Milwaukee convention, made many a despairing Democrat predict a landslide November victory for him.

But suddenly, after the President’s historic announcement ceding his reelection bid to his 59-year-old energetic, affable VP — currently TikTok’s darling, Kamala Harris — Trump, not Biden, has become the old man in the race.