Ms. Kamala Harris and her “deputy” Tim Walz. (Source: AFP)

The 2024 race for the White House between a woman of color, with the advantage of youth, and a seasoned candidate with a large age gap, could be factors that make the election in November in the United States interesting and unpredictable.

Rising Position

Kamala Harris has had a good start to her campaign. She quickly received almost absolute support within the Democratic Party. On August 5, the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Mr. Jaime Harrison, officially announced that Ms. Harris became the party's presidential candidate with 99% of the votes from the 4,567 Democratic delegates participating in the vote.

Even before she was officially recognized, Harris had raised $310 million in her first two weeks of campaigning, surpassing Trump’s $138.7 million in July. Notably, 66% of those donations came from first-time donors to this year’s presidential campaign, and 94% were donations of less than $200. In addition, Harris’s campaign attracted 170,000 volunteers in just two weeks since Biden announced his withdrawal.

According to a late July ABC News poll, Harris’s approval rating rose from 35% to 43% and her support among independents rose from 28% to 44% just one week after officially entering the race. In addition to targeting young voters and women, Harris’s campaign also announced a “Republicans for Harris” program to appeal to Republicans dissatisfied with former President Donald Trump’s “dictatorship” rhetoric and isolationist policies, distancing himself from allies and NATO.

On August 6, Ms. Harris announced that she had chosen Mr. Tim Walz, 60 years old, Governor of Minnesota and currently Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, as her running mate. By choosing Mr. Walz, who is considered a model for what the Democratic Party wants to do nationwide by promoting a series of progressive policies (enshrining access to abortion into state law, restoring voting rights to the formerly incarcerated, universal free meals in schools, etc.), Ms. Harris hopes to strengthen her position in the Midwest, an important region in this year's presidential election.

Open opportunity

According to election observers, recent developments show that the Republican Party is no longer certain of Mr. Trump's victory because media attention has decreased after the "attempted assassination" and they are somewhat confused in finding Ms. Harris's weak points to attack.

Mr. Trump’s campaign team urged him to focus his attacks on his Democratic opponent on illegal immigration, inflation and poor prosecution of Ms. Harris as a prosecutor instead of the unconvincing criticisms focused on Ms. Harris’s race and gender that Mr. Trump has often used in recent times.

Although Ms. Harris narrowed and even led Mr. Trump among young voters (60%-40%) according to the Generation Lab poll, Mr. Trump was still trusted by voters to solve economic problems, immigration and handle the crisis in the Middle East in the survey conducted by NPR/PBS News/Martist from August 1-4. That shows that each side has advantages that will make voters have a headache choosing their vote.

Unpredictable scenario

Polls show that this year’s race for the White House is extremely tight. A Reuters poll from July 24-28 showed that Ms. Harris had taken the lead over Mr. Trump in four of the six battleground states, including Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada. The Economist on August 6 showed Ms. Harris leading 48% to 45% in the national popular vote. This is the first time the Democratic candidate has led the Republican in a survey since October 2023.

However, winning the national popular vote is not enough to win a presidential election, as Hillary Clinton and Al Gore did. To secure the 270 electoral votes needed, Harris must win battleground states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, which have trended Republican in recent elections.

In 2020, although President Biden defeated former President Trump by 4.5% of the national popular vote, he won Wisconsin by only a slim 0.6% to secure the 270 electoral votes and win the White House. If Ms. Harris faces a similar disadvantage in the swing states, her national popular vote lead is not enough to guarantee her the 270 electoral votes needed to win.

On August 8, both candidates Trump and Harris confirmed their readiness for a live debate on ABC News . If held, this will be the first face-to-face between Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris as presidential candidates representing the two largest parties in the United States.

Observers predict that the results of this debate will likely have a significant impact on the votes of voters, especially neutral voters, this November.