Why the Dem Convention Won't Be All About Trump

For the first time in a long time, Kamala Harris has made politics about more than Donald Trump

Something has felt fundamentally different about politics over the last month. Yes, we have a brand new candidate with a fun, charismatic running mate who is generating excitement and crowds unseen since the Obama days. But something larger is at play, and it’s taken me a while to put my finger on it. I finally figured it out while thinking about the convention that begins today in Chicago.

For the first time in nearly a decade, politics is not all about Trump. This is to the credit of Harris, Walz, and their campaign. The race is now about the future, and about hope and joy, as opposed to the fear that dominated politics since Trump arrived on the scene.

Harris talks about Trump, as she should. He is her opponent, but the thrust of her message is about herself, her values, and her vision. Before the change in candidates, the conversation centered on voting to defeat Trump. Harris is running to do something good, not stop something bad.

This is one of the main reasons people who tuned out politics have tuned back in to learn about Harris. She is a break from the past and the promise of something new.

This convention will be different from the version planned for Biden or the 2016 and 2020 conventions. While we can never lose sight of the existential threat Trump poses to democracy, a convention that spends more time on Kamala Harris than Donald Trump is a welcome change and smart politics.

A Strategic Shift

Up until a month ago, Democrats believed that we had to focus the 2024 election on Donald Trump. The race was functioning as a referendum on Joe Biden. Given the President’s approval numbers at the time, we needed the race to become a choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The more voters thought about Trump — his chaos, corruption, and convictions, the better. This is why the Biden team sought out an early debate: to focus the electorate on Trump.

That had been the party’s strategy since 2016. In the post-mortem of Clinton’s campaign, Democrats failed to articulate the threat properly. The 2018 midterm was all about electing Democrats to offer a check against Trump. Biden’s successful strategy in 2020 allowed Trump to make the election all about himself.

Trump was the singular figure in politics. He drove conversation and dominated ad traffic, and our message and tactics were developed with Trump in mind. The party's communications apparatus waited for Trump to say or do something crazy (or criminal), find the tallest mountain, and then scream about it.

If Biden were still the nominee, this week’s convention would center around Trump. Yes, there would have been a valiant effort to celebrate (and educate the public about) Biden’s achievements. Speakers would talk about the progress made on the economy and the impact of the Inflation Reduction and CHIPS Acts. That’s window dressing; the primary purpose of the convention would have been to scare the shit out of people. To wake the public from their uncomfortably numb stupor and focus their minds on the threat of Trump.

That is not the strategic imperative of the Democratic Convention now. Yes, every speaker will mention Trump. There will be plenty of discussion of January 6th and Project 2025. Harris will contrast her plans with Trump’s. However, the primary purpose of the convention is to introduce Harris to the country as herself, not the mirror image of Trump.

The Political Imperatives

In the Clinton-Trump and Biden-Trump races, voters knew about the candidates. Trump, Clinton, and Biden had been in their lives for years — even decades. This campaign is different. For the first time in a very long time, we have a candidate largely unknown to the public. Yes, Kamala Harris has been Vice President for nearly four years. She was in the Senate for four years before that and was Attorney General for the biggest state in the nation. Voters know her name and job title but a CBS News/YouGov poll found that many voters don’t know her positions.

Similarly, a poll from Blueprint, a Democratic firm, found:

Voters are eager for fresh messaging in this race–voter perceptions of Donald Trump are mostly solidified, so their appetite for Trump-centric content is limited. In fact, 71% of voters say their minds are made up about Trump and that there is absolutely nothing that could change their opinion about him. Just 57% say the same about Vice President Harris, with 20% saying either that they’re open to changing their minds about her or that they don’t really have any views on her and need to learn more. 

This Blueprint finding is noteworthy because it shows that focusing so much energy on Trump has diminishing returns. This is why so many speakers this week will use their precious moments in primetime to talk up Harris rather than talk down Trump. To be clear, we cannot ignore Trump or the threat he poses. That would be unwise politically and a moral abdication. If we don’t call out the dangers, no one else will. However, anti-Trump messages are less effective than the ones that educate people about Harris. David Plouffe, a Harris-Walz campaign strategist, and my old friend, said to Jon Favreau on the latest episode of Favreau’s podcast The Wilderness that their research shows persuadable voters are very eager to learn more about Harris.

Time is the one non-renewable resource in a campaign. A campaign can raise more money, hire more people, and run more ads, but can never get more time. A moment wasted is gone forever. It’s so hard to get a persuadable voter's attention; you may only get it once or twice during a campaign. In those moments, it’s vital to deliver the most effective message possible. The convention is one such moment. We may get some of these folks to tune in, and that’s why we have to give them what they want — more information about Kamala Harris. It may not be as satisfying as dunking on Trump, but it will be a helluva lot more effective.