Harris must turn around the huge lack of enthusiasm voters had for Biden. She has to make up Biden’s lag with young people, Black and Latino voters, and build on support from women on the issue of abortion rights.

There are early signs of quick Harris gains. This week’s New York Times/ Siena poll has Harris narrowing Biden’s gap with Trump, with her approval up from 36 per cent to 46 per cent, and sharp recovery with young voters and Latinos.

Trump’s vice-presidential pick, Senator J.D. Vance, is already pummelling Harris on extremism, race and sex. Trump was into full attack mode this week. He loves denigrating nicknames, and Harris will now be known as “Lyin’ Kamala Harris”, the “most incompetent and far-left vice president in American history”.

Trump said she “has been the ultra-liberal driving force behind every single Biden catastrophe. She is a radical left lunatic who will destroy our country if she ever gets the chance to get into office.” For good measure, Trump smeared her for being Biden’s “border czar” and “the original Marxist”.

Vance is even rougher, and more personal. In a replay of the vicious attacks on Julia Gillard when she was prime minister, Vance has said that women who do not have children are “childless cat ladies who are miserable in their own lives”, with “no direct stake in America”.

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Republicans in the House are targeting Harris racially. One House Republican called her the “DEI vice president” – the acronym for diversity, equality and inclusion. Another said Democrats support her “because of her ethnic background”. Misogyny and racial slurs never rest. This will get uglier.

Harris has a vice president to pick. She must win the midwestern industrial states that Trump won in 2016 and where Trump is surging – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – to seal victory. Harris may well turn to Josh Shapiro, the popular governor of Pennsylvania.

A Trump-Harris debate will be the ultimate political theatre. Can Trump, who loves bloody, violent pugilism, throw her out of the ring? Can prosecutor Harris convict him of extremism and treason against America’s democracy and bait him into a disqualifying attack?

In this election, is Kamala Harris a retread of Hillary Clinton, whose unpopularity failed to put Trump away? Or is she Barack Obama, the candidate of hope and change, who was able on the night of his election victory in 2008 to talk of “Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and always will be, the United States of America.”

One hundred days to go until the election. Hell, it’s only the future of the free world.

Bruce Wolpe is a senior fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre. He has served on the Democratic staff in the US Congress and as chief of staff to former prime minister Julia Gillard.

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