Whatever one thinks of Harris, it is astonishing to see how quickly her elevation to the top of the Democratic ticket has transformed the 2024 election. According to her campaign, she has raised more than $US540 million ($795 million) worth of donations in just over a month – including $US82 million during the convention in Chicago last week.

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Hundreds of thousands of volunteers have signed up to join the Harris-Walz campaign, including 90,000 last Thursday and Friday alone after the vice president hit the stage to formally accept her presidential nomination.

The atmosphere inside the United Centre was truly electric – even exceeding the giddy enthusiasm of the Republican National Convention a few weeks earlier, when emboldened delegates rallied around Trump after the attempted assassination on him.

Indeed, from the moment DJ Cassidy hit the decks in Chicago for the ceremonial roll call – paving the way for an unforgettable cameo by US rapper Lil Jon as Georgia cast its votes – democracy became an unbridled celebration.

Jubilant Democrats danced and cheered in their seats. People waved the American flag and chanted “USA! USA!” – the kind of patriotism you’d expect to see at a Trump rally.

The roar of the crowd was at times deafening, most notably when Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Oprah Winfrey took the stage to deliver three of the best speeches of the convention.

“Let us choose joyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” Winfrey sang on the third night, using what has fast become the buzzword of the election.

And that they did. But what strikes me about this stunning turnaround is that it is less about Harris herself – whom most Americans are still getting to know – and more about voters’ immense dissatisfaction with the prospect of a Trump-Biden rematch.

This is something I saw first-hand, over and over, as I travelled around battleground states this year. In South Carolina, for instance, I met former Democrat Chris Salley, who left the party last October outraged by Biden’s stance over the war in Gaza.

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In North Carolina, university student Alexander Denza expressed similar frustrations, adding that “the fact that we have more of the same or the status quo is tiring students out”.

And in New Hampshire, Kris Make cast her vote in the Democratic primaries for Biden’s longshot challenger, Dean Phillips, due to fears about the president’s age and ability to do the job.

Harris’ ascension has offered these kinds of voters what they had been longing for: something new, different and younger than the two “pale, male, and stale” candidates they had to choose from four years ago.

The big question is whether Harris can sustain the momentum. With just over two months until election day, the latest RealClearPolitics poll of averages has Harris leading Trump at a national level, 48.3 per cent to 46.6 per cent.

But when you drill down to individual battleground states, the race remains extremely tight, with Trump very narrowly ahead in Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada, and Harris with a small edge in Wisconsin and Michigan.

Her first post-convention test will come on Thursday night when the often-scripted vice president finally sits down for a proper interview on CNN, alongside running mate Tim Walz.

A much bigger test, however, will take place on September 10, when she goes head-to-head with Trump in their first presidential debate in Philadelphia.

Expect a bare-knuckled brawl between a former prosecutor and a convicted felon, where anything could happen to upend the race. Just ask Biden.

Until next time,

Farrah.

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