Phillip M. BaileyUSA TODAY
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CHICAGO ― Dressed in a Kamala Harris campaign ball cap with a vest decorated by buttons and party paraphernalia, Kenny Agosto strutted outside the United Center in Chicago the night Gov. Tim Walz addressed the Democratic convention.
The 54-year-old Bronx, New York, native would have voted for President Joe Biden, "whether he was dead or not," he said.
But the new Democratic ticket going up against former President Donald Trump is an adrenaline rush.
"I am enthused, I'm going to work, and I got my marching orders," Agosto said. "Like this guy was saying, we're going to sleep when we're dead."
It's still difficult for him to shake a creeping dread, however, when he thinks about past elections, such as 2016 or 2000, when his party came up short.
"I cried when Trump was elected, real hard tears. And I survived the 2000 election, so I cried real tears because I knew what was coming."
After inheriting a dire campaign outlook, Harris' surge in polls has caught up with Trump in the battleground states, firing off an unprecedented sprint to the November finish.
A new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll released Thursday finds the VP leading the former president by five percentage points, representing an eight-point turnaround in the 2024 contest compared to when Biden was the presumptive nominee in late June.
Democrats want to keep the optimism going. But campaign veterans, including some former Harris advisors, know better: peril could still be at their door.
In the 10 weeks until Election Day, they must build a winning coalition, introduce a relatively unknown contender to the public and unveil ideas that excite the base without alienating independents fed up with Trump.
There's still lagging support among base voters compared to 2020; Trump's legal troubles could reignite his MAGA base; an unforeseen failure by the Biden administration (which she still works for); a debate gaffe; or an October surprise.
One of the first big tests will be Thursday when Harris and Walz will do their first interview with CNN.
GOP foes have already called out the Democratic nominee for not doing interviews with legacy media outlets and say this joint sit-down underscores Harris’ inability to carry her own weight.
“After refusing to do any interviews and hiding for a month, Harris still won’t sit for a 1:1 interview,” former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said in a post on X.
“She is weak and not ready for the job.”
Daria Dawson, who served as director of strategic engagement for Harris's 2020 presidential campaign, said whatever unforeseen obstacles come the VP’s way, the Democratic nominee's biggest challenge will be keeping her voters focused on Nov. 5.
"It is OK for folks to be nervous," said Dawson, who now serves as executive director of America Votes, a progressive voter turnout group. "We had a very hard lesson in 2016 and that is not to take any voter or any person for granted, and to ignore the polls."
Being Biden's No. 2 on economy, other issues
As Biden's No. 2, Harris is inextricably connected to the current administration, which had failing approval numbers through much of the 2024 contest.
Before exiting the race, Biden had a 36% job approval rating, according to Gallup, which was the lowest of his presidency.
A slipping jobs report or administration screw up could always throw her role as Biden's vice president back into the mix. And Trump and his Republican friends have tried mightily to connect Harris to her boss.
Most recently the GOP nominee has slammed her over the 2021 pullout in Afghanistan, which resulted in 13 dead U.S. soldiers. Harris described herself as being the last person in the room when Biden decided to move forward with plans, whichbegan under Trump,to leave the foreign country.
On the campaign trail, Trump's speeches regularly pummel the Biden administration for its handling of the economy and inflation.
Harris has outlined that she is dedicated to getting costs under control by targeting "price gouging" by grocers, for example.
Trump held an 11-point advantaged when voters were asked in July who they preferred on the economy. But a newReuters/Ipsos poll released this week shows Harris gaining, with 40% of voters preferring her approach compared to 43% who said the same about Trump.
Hillary Holley, executive director of Care in Action, a nonprofit advocacy group for domestic workers, said she is looking for the VP to be more aggressive with a populist economic message that differs from the current administration.
She noted how childcare costs have exceeded college tuition in dozens of states.
"Talk about plans on how to lower that cost," Holley said. "She needs to share plans on why passing a federal paid leave for all policy is going to help people be able to when they take off, to care for themselves or sick loved ones."
Gaza and third-party contenders
Criticism from the activist left was expected in the streets of Chicago, where protesters clashed with police over Israel's war in Gaza that has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry.
But that divide showed up at the convention too, when a small but voluble group of uncommitted delegates demanded a Palestinian American address the audience to acknowledge the humanitarian crisis.
Those delegates were rebuffed by the Harris campaign, which could shave off votes in swing states, such as Michigan, where there is a significant Muslim American population and earlier in the year during the Democratic primary more than 100,000 cast ballots for "uncommitted" over Biden.
Many of those voters could find refuge among third-party contenders, such as philosopher Cornel West, who is back on the Wolverine State's ballot.
Actor Kal Penn, who served as the national co-chair for former President Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign,, warned against Harris' response to a group Gaza protesters who interrupted her at a recent Michigan rally.
"If you want Donald trump to win, keep saying that," she said in response to their chants.
Penn said that was "a misstep" that seemed to be disparaging younger progressive voters who, "should be engaged and taken seriously."
"Those protestors don’t want Trump to win," Penn told USA TODAY ahead of the Democratic convention. "They want the vice president to do better, be held accountable for the administration’s abysmal human rights record and change policy."
What does Kamala Harris believe?
One lingering aspect of the current race is how little Americans know about Harris' overall views.
She has changed positions on key issues, such as building a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, with little explanation. In 2019, she described it as a "medieval vanity project," but in her acceptance speech at the convention she embraced a bipartisan border deal that includes millions for its construction.
A CBS News/YouGov survey earlier this month showed more than a third of voters still don't know what the VP stands for, which gives GOP attacks room to fill in those gaps with independent voters.
The lack of an encompassing policy platform − coupled with not doing a one-on-one interview to examine those views − could backfire with the American public, especially if Harris' honeymoon poll numbers ebb.
Trump debate, MAGA anger reignited
Much of the Harris campaign has centered around the "prosecutor versus felon" narrative, and the upcoming Sept. 10 debate in Philadelphia will be the best place to showcase that casting.
Democrats are itching to get back at the GOP after Biden's abysmal debate performance, which catapulted him out of the race and threw liberals into a tailspin for weeks.
Much of this raises the expectations levels on Harris more than Trump, however.
She has been advertised by allies as someone who can eviscerate the other side, whether as a senator grilling Brett Kavanaugh when he was Supreme Court nominee or as a VP candidate reclaiming the floor with incumbent Mike Pence in 2020.
Sergio Jose Gutierrez, a former advisor to Hillary Clinton, said the hype around Harris may work against her ahead of the debate.
"She has momentum but it has nothing to do with anything she has done," Gutierrez said. "It is because she is the new kid, or in this case, the new girl on the block."
Democrats are also aware at how loyal Trump's supporters are, especially in the wake of an assassination attempt.
The former president was also hit with anew indictmentin his election interference case Tuesday, weeks after the Supreme Court issued a new ruling on presidential immunity.
"PERSECUTION OF A POLITICAL OPPONENT," Trump declared, without evidence, in a Wednesday post on X.
On top of that, Trump's sentencing for falsifying business recordsthat concealed hush money paid to a p*rn star istentatively scheduled for Sept. 18, a week after the debate.
Gutierrez said if it appears that the former president is being persecuted by the legal justice system − as it did to many Trump supporters during the GOP primary − it could inject new energy into his MAGA movement.
"Democrats are very much afraid of the fandom that Trump has created, because there is not such a thing as Kamala Harris fandom,” he said.
'She's going to win': Allies bet on extended honeymoon
Whatever reservations some political experts have coming out of the convention, many of the delegates who spoke with USA TODAY are in love with their new candidacy.
"She's going to win," Jonathan Moses, 32, of Miami, Florida, said on the convention floor.
He said more Americans are focused on restoring the values of dignity, honor and respect, and that Harris exhibits all of those.
"And I think that the difference is 100% clear," Moses added.
Liz McDonald, 77, of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, said she doesn't think Democrats are being overconfident: "It doesn't keep me up at night, but it makes me work as hard as I can to try to make sure that it doesn't happen."
Harris supporters have plenty of reasons to be excited as several yardsticks have her statistically tied with Trump in the critical battleground states that will decide the outcome, where she is making considerable gains with core Democrats. A study of the 10 highest-rated pollsters by Politico, for instance, showed since the swap, Harris is scoring gains with every demographic of base voters such as Black, Hispanic and college-educated women.
The new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll illustrates this, showing dramatic swings − powered by young people, voters of color and low-income households − since June toward the Democratic ticket.
Among voters age 18 to 34 years old, for instance, an 11-point edge by Trump has turned into a 13-point one for the VP. Harris has opened up a 16-point lead among Hispanics, who once gave the GOP contender a 2-point advantage. The Democratic lead with Black voters under Biden has been extended from a 47-point blowout to a 64-point wallop, and she is ahead among voters making less than $20,000 annually by 23 points, the poll shows.
Elisabeth Anker, a professor of American Studies at George Washington University, said the anxiety is still there for Democrats, but it's now part of what fuels their enthusiasm for Harris.
"I see anxiety not as the flip side to the enthusiasm, but part of what underpins it," she said.
"It is the sense that there is a significantly higher chance now that the Democratic Party will win, that she will be the candidate, that people support her candidacy and feel that there's a viable path forward."
One element grassroots organizers and political strategist say gives them a sign to be optimistic is how the Harris campaign is investing its resources. For example, days before the convention, for example, Harris ditched Air Force Two for a bus that mazed its way through western Pennsylvania.
The campaign will make a similar two-day trek by bus through parts of rural Georgia, which has impressed activists and state legislators in the exurbs who pay attention to every margin of turnout.
Cynthia Wallace, co-founder of the New Rural Project, which focuses on rural voters of color, said a focus on rural voters could turn swing states blue if national Democrats invest in those territories.
"Harris could win North Carolina, and definitely win back some of these rural counties that have gone red primarily because Black and (Hispanic) turnout has gone gotten so low," she said.
The Cook Political Reportsurveyof seven key swing states released ahead of the convention, for example, showed Harris ahead of Trump 46%-44% in North Carolina. The Cook forecast moved North Carolina, where Wallace's group has knocked on tens of thousands of doors and contacted thousands of voters, from leans Republican to a toss-up state this week.
She said all involved acknowledge the razor-thin margins this contest will be decided by and that Harris will face stumbles, but that volunteers and organizers are too busy working to be troubled with anxiety.
"The feeling that I feel on the ground is the closest I've seen to 2008," Wallace said. "I know in my social media, my phone, everybody's excited."
Reporter Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy contributed to this story.
