#USElection2024: Will Harris’ uneven campaign be enough to beat Trump?

Kamala Harris may have an impossible task.

She took over her party’s general election ticket with no notice on a mission of beating the most hostile candidate in modern history — Donald Trump.

Her political skills have always been questioned. But if the vice president wins on November 5, she’ll claim one of great election wins of all time.

Still, she’s got a lot of problems. The electorate wants change – and Harris is encumbered by being the vice president of an unpopular administration.

Trump has seized on high prices of food and homes and the Biden administration’s failure to fix the policy or the politics of undocumented migration. And she’s not really come up with good answers.

The uneven political performance skills that have made Harris’ task even harder were on show in a CNN town hall on Wednesday night.

The vice president’s message of unity and her calm demeanor contrasted with Trump’s sound and fury. She was strongest on issues where she appears to have a solid policy grounding — like abortion rights. Her new strategy of warning that Trump is a “fascist” who will destroy democracy could also resonate.

But an undecided voter waiting for specific, actionable, day-one policies to cut the cost of groceries may have been disappointed at her vague vows to tackle what she sees as price gouging by supermarket giants.

Loyalty is admirable and Harris didn’t take an opening to throw Biden under the bus on immigration. But successful politicians need a ruthless streak, and Harris still can’t seem to say what she’d do differently on any issue from President Joe Biden in the White House.

Harris’s supporters find critiques like this infuriating. Her opponent is after all a twice-impeached convicted felon who lies almost every time he opens his mouth and tried to steal the last election. But politics isn’t fair.