What you might've missed at the DNC
Welcome to 538's politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.
tia.yang (Tia Yang, senior editor): This week, Democrats (and our own Nathaniel Rakich!) are gathered in Chicago for the 2024 Democratic National Convention. Between an assassination attempt, last month's Republican National Convention, President Joe Biden dropping out and a veepstakes contest, we don't need to tell you that the last couple months have been a wild ride in politics. The ongoing DNC is in some ways the culmination of a really topsy-turvy period kicking off a totally new presidential race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Heading into the event, Harris had been riding the high of largely positive polling movement, including in key battleground states, and a wave of excitement among Democrats over her candidacy. But the convention was likely many viewers' first significant exposure to Harris as a nominee, so in today's 538 politics chat we'll discuss what narrative Democrats are painting about her, whether the convention has continued that momentum and how this DNC looks different than the one we might've expected just a month ago.
Let's start off with overall impressions: What have Democrats been focusing on in this convention? Do you think their messaging has been effective?
Monica Potts (Monica Potts, senior politics reporter): I think their messaging has largely focused on capitalizing on those feelings of enthusiasm and momentum, in addition to policy messaging sprinkled in. Speakers keep talking about their own excitement and the excitement of the crowds. The Obamas, who both spoke Tuesday night, passed the mantle of "hope" onto Harris. They've tried, and possibly succeeded, to create opportunities for more memes that could keep driving positive social media attention. From home, it seems like a party atmosphere and that the excitement is pretty genuine. I'm curious about what Nathaniel thinks since he's actually there.
meredithconroy (Meredith Conroy, political science professor at California State University, San Bernardino, and 538 contributor): My impression is that the central message of this convention is joy and moving the country forward, with Harris as a happy warrior. The "Happy Warrior" in American politics is nothing new, but I do think it's historically a difficult archetype for women. Women often face a backlash when conveying both warmth and strength due to pernicious gendered expectations, and yet this convention is effectively signaling that Harris is able to do that. I think it's been effective. Millions are watching — and for many younger viewers, this may even be their first convention — and I think Democrats are making a strong case for themselves to lead.
I'll add two more things that seem to be throughlines. First, Democrats are taking back the notion of freedom as a Democratic virtue, which is smart because "freedom" has bipartisan support. And second, they've made the case that a virtue Democrats already own — inclusion — extends to family structures of all kinds, particularly by dunking on some of the unpopular comments JD Vance has made about women and families.
nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, senior editor and senior elections analyst): Yeah, to be honest, it has been very different covering a convention in person than doing it from home. Your attention is much less on the substance of the speeches themselves and more on the atmosphere in the arena and all the other events going on (a lot of people don't even bother taking their seats for the speeches until primetime).
But the atmosphere has been jovial and enthusiastic. Of course, you would expect that from a gathering of the die-hard-est of die-hard party activists, but the delegates I've spoken to do seem much more excited about Harris than they would have been about Biden.
Even some of the intraparty dissent over Israel and Gaza feels very far away. There was a small protest on the floor on Monday night, but other than that, I wouldn't have had any idea about the sit-in or protests taking place outside if I hadn't seen it on the news. And when you're inside the arena, you're too busy with what's in front of you to follow news coverage that closely.
Out of curiosity, from your perspective on the outside, how much coverage are those getting versus the speeches themselves?
tia.yang: There's definitely been coverage of protests and how the issue of Israel-Gaza has come up at the convention — most notably, with the news Wednesday that the DNC denied requests from the pro-Palestinian "uncommitted" movement to include a Palestinian speaker in the convention lineup. But this dissent is being portrayed, I think, more like an intraparty debate — an ongoing conversation or even negotiation between the pro-Palestinian camp and party leaders. This is certainly not 1968, when anti-war protests outside the DNC overshadowed the convention itself, or even 2016, when hundreds of pro-Bernie Sanders protesters walked off of the convention floor. That's notable given the historic context of this convention and the ascendance of Harris as a candidate, which has some parallels to both those years.
None of that is to dismiss the seriousness of these protests and the fact that this issue looks like it will continue being a thorn in the side of Harris's campaign. But to the question of media coverage and public perceptions, I'd also note that protests outside of political events, and large-scale protests in general, have become very par for the course over the last several years. Photos of protestors outside the convention are striking but not necessarily shocking, and I think that factors into why they may not be a bigger part of the public's overall impression of what's going on at the DNC.
meredithconroy: The live coverage for most networks includes a correspondent who is outside, reporting on protests, but I think most of the media coverage of the night itself has focused on the speeches, the musical artists and other ways the DNC is trying to make this convention engaging to a wider audience — like comedian Kenan Thompson skewering Project 2025, as part of Democrats' continuing efforts to tie Republicans to the unpopular policy platform.
tia.yang: On the topic of how the convention has tackled policy issues, Monica mentioned earlier that policy has been sort of sprinkled into a larger message of excitement and hope. But conventions are obviously a great opportunity for the parties to make their pitch and win over voters on policy too. During the RNC, we talked about how Republicans made concerted efforts to appeal to swing voters, particularly in its prime time speeches – what about the DNC?
Monica Potts: Like Republicans did at their convention, Democrats have been talking a lot about issues on which they have an advantage with voters. Speakers have addressed abortion and reproductive freedom in many speeches. (I haven't counted all the mentions yet, but I will, so stay tuned!) They've also spoken about threats to democracy, Trump's criminal convictions and his actions related to denying the results of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
They've also celebrated the racial, ethnic and gender diversity displayed on stage and in the crowd as a representation of American diversity. "Democracy isn't just a bunch of abstract principles and dusty laws in some book somewhere," Barack Obama said in his Tuesday night speech, echoing themes from the DNC speech 20 years ago that made him famous. "It's the values we live by. It's the way we treat each other, including those who don't look like us, or pray like us, or see the world exactly like we do." Overall, these messages point to the kinds of issues — abortion, health care, racial equity and protecting democracy — that voters really trust Democrats to handle better than Republicans.
Interestingly, they've also spent a lot of time on economic issues, especially talking about Harris' middle-class roots and her college job at McDonald's, and attacked Trump for being a billionaire. Their economic messaging has been framed as standing up for regular people, working people and unions. That was particularly true of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's speech Monday night, and during Biden's speech the same night, the crowd chanted "Union Joe." So, though Republicans have an advantage on polls when voters are asked who they trust on "the economy," Harris has been eating into that advantage and is trying to frame the issue differently.
nrakich: Monica basically just said everything I was going to say, haha. What I think has been notable is how they are trying to retake control of some of those issues they are weaker on. In addition to what Monica said about the economic messaging, they've mentioned multiple times how Trump scuttled the bipartisan immigration deal earlier this year, acknowledging border security as a problem but arguing that Trump put his political fortunes ahead of solving that problem.
Monica Potts: Totally right, Nathaniel. When Ocasio-Cortez said Trump "would sell this country for a dollar if it meant lining his own pockets and greasing the palms of his Wall Street friends," it pretty well summed up the party's line about the former president, and they haven't held back.
meredithconroy: I agree with Monica that the convention is underscoring issues that Democrats "own." And I agree with Nathaniel that they are trying to retake other things, too. But some of those things aren't explicit issues. Democrats are arguing they are the party of freedom and family (oh, and football). And I think the audience for that is potential voters whose view of the party is distorted by social media or cable news, which tends to emphasize the extremes (of both parties).
But one policy issue they haven't shied away from is reproductive health. For example, there was a segment on Tuesday featuring several people sharing their experiences with abortion policy, and Walz shared his family's fertility challenges in his keynote speech on Wednesday.
Not only are Democrats discussing reproductive rights, but they are framing it as an issue of freedom. Iraq War veteran and Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth said she "went to war to protect America's rights and freedoms," including reproductive choice, and then spoke about her own experience using in vitro fertilization to have her daughters. Overall, Democrats have become more vocal on this issue, directly linking it to abortion bans and pointing out that Senate Republicans, including JD Vance, blocked a bill to protect the right to IVF.
nrakich: And IVF is one of the few things that virtually everyone in America agrees on. According to a Civiqs/Daily Kos poll from earlier this year, 80 percent of Americans think IVF should be legal; only 6 percent think it should be illegal.
tia.yang: Between hammering home issues of strength like reproductive rights, and trying to make headway on issues like economy and immigration, you've all alluded to Democrats' appeals to potentially undecided or moderate voters. Is this convention message tailored to them? Does it suggest Harris's potential to appeal to some voters who were out of reach for Biden? How are these arguments different from what we might've seen from a Biden-led DNC?
Monica Potts: The convention has featured disaffected Republicans speaking to reach out to undecided, swing or independent voters, and Democrats have been trying to win over anti-Trump conservatives for years now.
But one thing that does feel new, to me, in comparison to campaign messages from Biden or even other Democrats, is the way Harris and Walz have really reclaimed the idea of freedom. As Meredith said, they've tied it to abortion and reproductive rights. But it's also a lot more. Walz, in particular, has been framing Democratic policies as being a kind of good neighbor: Help people when they need it, but when they make choices different from yours, the golden rule is "mind your own damn business."
That seems very new and maybe designed to be attractive to people who hadn't thought of these ideas that way before. It also really mutes some of the attacks Republicans have long made on Democrats and continued to lob at Harris and Walz, portraying their policy ideas as big-government communism.
tia.yang: Sorry to be this person, but it has to be said that Harris has frequently been walking on to Beyonce's "Freedom" during campaign events and her surprise DNC debut.
meredithconroy: Right? Earlier I was suggesting Democrats were being subtle with the freedom messaging, when they're clearly not. ["FREEDOM" PLAYS IN THE BACKGROUND]
Monica Potts: It is really difficult to imagine this kind of show as a Biden convention. It really seems like Gen X and Millennials are in charge, or at least have a huge say in the planning here. The music selection alone really felt new.
The Democrats have really been amping up the fact that they can play music with permission from the artists and without getting cease-and-desist letters. There are playlists of the music played during the state roll call floating around on Spotify and other apps.
meredithconroy: Yes! And this is one of the ways I think this convention gets beyond a typical convention-curious audience. To Tia's question, do I think that sort of engagement would've emerged with a Biden-Harris ticket? I'm not sure. Possibly. But I agree with Monica that Harris at the top and Walz as VP has allowed Democrats to bring in new messaging that is fresh.
I think it's also a good time to point out that Trump, too, had an opportunity for new messaging with Vance. But Trump went narrow with a VP pick who largely doubles down on Trump's own messaging and demographic appeal, while Democrats' messaging seems to be trying to bridge (not just bond).
nrakich: Yeah, in all seriousness, I think the music actually helps contribute to a positive image for this DNC. It encourages this narrative that Democrats are the party of joy. It also, frankly, just makes Democrats seem cooler and younger, which is an advantage with voters. Trump, after all, has almost 20 years on Harris, and the last ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that Harris leads Trump by 30 percentage points on being physically fit to be president.
Monica Potts: Right? That's kind of unusual. Harris is a sitting vice president, former senator, and not necessarily that young at age 59, but she's kind of running as a new face, which she is to many voters, and portraying Trump as a sort of incumbent. The obvious rejoinder to that from Republicans is to tie Harris to the Biden administration and ask, "Why hasn't your party done all the things you've said you're going to do in your four years in office?" But I also feel like people were so unhappy with the Biden v. Trump rematch that Harris's entrance into the race felt like a welcome change and a big shakeup.
tia.yang: Speaking of, Democrats have also shifted their message on Trump. A big part of the Biden-Trump race was Biden's pitch that he was the only candidate who could beat Trump, with a focus on the former president as an existential threat to democracy. Meanwhile, Trump (not totally successfully) made a point of not mentioning Biden, who was still the nominee at the time, by name at the RNC.
So what about the elephant in the room — how have Democrats been talking about Trump this week? Have they effectively shifted the narrative from a race that seemed to be turning in Trump's favor before Harris stepped in?
nrakich: Democrats have thrown a lot at Trump this week — calling him an out-of-touch businessman, a threat to democracy, a convicted felon, someone who is just in it for personal gain, etc. I'm not sure any of those are shifting any narratives, since they've been saying these things for almost a decade, and Trump's favorability is underwater as a result. That said, he is currently kinda popular by his standards — his average net favorability rating is "only" -10 points — so Democrats are probably just trying to remind Americans why they disliked him in the first place.
Monica Potts: Speakers have mentioned Trump a lot. And if I could boil down their take on Trump to one sentence or sentiment, it would be something like, "Can you believe this guy is still around?"
As Nathaniel said, so many of the charges and attacks on Trump are old. He's a well-known quantity, and people are already familiar with him and his claims and successes and faults. For Democrats, it's kind of like, "we're sick of this, let's move on to something new."
meredithconroy: Michelle Obama's remarks certainly took that tone, Monica. She was very effective and didn't pull any punches. She repositioned her famous quote, "when they go low, we go high," to something like when they go small, we call it out, portraying Trump as "petty" and "unpresidential." As Michelle Norris put it in an opinion column, her speech was "hope served up hot."
tia.yang: Right, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries compared Trump to an ex who you broke up with but who won't go away ("Bro, we broke up with you for a reason"), while Barack Obama compared him to an annoying neighbor with a leaf blower.
Even if their specific attacks aren't new, just having a fresh, younger Democratic candidate seems to make them land differently. After all, "can you believe this guy is still around?" described how many voters felt about Biden, too.
Going back to one of our earlier points, Wednesday night's emphasis on not just "hope" but "joy" seemed pretty striking and intentional as a campaign reset. Speakers from across generations mentioned it, including former President Bill Clinton and Jeffries, who quoted the Bible verse, "joy comes in the morning." Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg summed up the Harris-Trump contest as one of joy versus "darkness."
To build off Meredith's "happy warrior" analogy from earlier, this all evoked former President Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America" slogan, pitching Americans on an optimistic new future. That's just not something Biden could pull off.
Monica Potts: After Biden withdrew and Harris became the nominee, it really hit me how much Biden wasn't really campaigning — at least not effectively. Harris's campaign was immediately ready to jump on the campaign trail and is out there making news, getting headlines, drawing crowds. These are things that Biden just wasn't doing, which I think was part of why there was pressure for him to withdraw, even more than the issues surrounding his age and mental fitness. So, the excitement at this convention is really just a reminder of what Biden wasn't doing, and possibly couldn't do. This is just more of a campaign now.
tia.yang: Yeah, the fact that the enthusiasm scales have tipped in Harris's favor — and Trump's frustrations with that — have been much-commented on, including in a not-so-subtle dig during former President Obama's DNC speech. While Trump's recent campaign events have largely been described as rambling, even boring, commentators pointed out that Harris and Walz held a rally Tuesday that filled a second arena during the DNC — the same venue in Milwaukee where the RNC took place just last month.
meredithconroy: We keep hearing about a 'passing of the torch,' and that's been emphasized at the convention, but it almost feels unnecessary.
Overall though, a campaign should be about contrasts, and hope and joy versus darkness and hatred is an effective contrast to make. (So is "weird" versus normal, but that's not been central this week, which is probably smart, they don't want to wear it out!) Monica mentioned that voters were really unhappy with a rematch between an unpopular incumbent and an unpopular former president, and their lack of enthusiasm for Biden as a candidate likely contributed to why he wasn't able to draw those contrasts effectively.
Another contrast has been how Harris is able to be both hard and soft, tough and kind, etc. which her husband Doug Emhoff really drove home in his speech. We'll see how she conveys that in her remarks tonight. As I wrote for the site a few weeks ago, it's a difficult tightrope to walk, but so far Harris seems to be handling it.
