华盛顿-她是在任三年半的现任副总统。她也是仅五周的总统候选人，承诺“新的前进方式”。
卡玛拉·哈里斯是在她参加竞选活动时两者兼得民主党全国代表大会将部分功劳归于乔·拜登总统的记录在空军二号前举行的集会，同时将自己塑造成一个新的领导人，抨击“过去的政治”。
在每个总统竞选周期中，候选人都依靠经验或新鲜度，但哈里斯迄今为止似乎成功地协调了两个看似相互竞争的信息，这让前总统很失望唐纳德·特朗普和他的盟友。
“她拥有我们在政治中从未见过的强大、独特和有趣的优势，”倾向民主党的智库美国进步行动基金中心首席执行官帕特里克·加斯帕德说，他曾是奥巴马总统领导下的民主党全国委员会的执行主任。
“她既是现任者，”他说，“她能够从唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)手中夺走‘变革’的旗帜。”
哈里斯对国家的愿景在很大程度上依赖于拜登的计划，甚至在拜登退出后也没有重写这些计划。这DNC批准的平台上周获得通过，其中频繁提到拜登的“第二任期”，这已经过时了
她作为一个提出“新的前进方向”的人的形象，在很大程度上取决于她是一个与众不同的人。这位59岁的牙买加和印度移民的女儿取代了36年前首次竞选总统的81岁白人男子。她正在竞选成为美国第一位女总统和第一位黑人女性或南亚血统的人。
三分之二的民主党人希望拜登在与特朗普的辩论中退出，这体现了公众和许多知名民主党人私下对他准备就绪的长期担忧。
共和党民调专家惠特·艾尔斯(Whit Ayres)表示，哈里斯体现变革的能力“更多地与她的年龄、种族和性别有关，而不是与她阐述的任何政策立场有关。”他补充道，“这要求改变。”
在她的助手看来，哈里斯提供了选民们一年来一直渴望的东西:一个新的信使，但迄今为止，这是拜登-哈里斯记录的适度演变。
“当然，她是自己的领袖，”她的高级竞选政策顾问布莱恩·尼尔森在民主党全国委员会的彭博活动上告诉记者。“但在过去的三年半时间里，她一直是拜登总统的合作伙伴，”她补充说，他们有“共同的价值观和原则。”
特朗普竞选团队攻击她缺乏政策细节，并试图将她描绘成一个远比她表现出来的更加自由的人。或许是为了在新的民调出现之前设定预期，竞选团队周六预测，哈里斯在大会后的民调中会有所上升，并将其称为“哈里斯蜜月”
特朗普的民调专家托尼·法布里齐奥(Tony Fabrizio)和特拉维斯·突尼斯(Travis Tunis)写道:“我们肯定已经坐在了‘蜜月’的前排。”"事实上，媒体决定将蜜月延长超过4周."
哈里斯的竞选团队周日宣布，在民主党全国代表大会的一周内，他们筹集了8200万美元，自拜登7月21日退出竞选并支持她以来，他们筹集了令人震惊的5.4亿美元。
哈里斯试图为拜登的部分外交政策记录邀功。她在大会发言中表示，在俄罗斯发动全面进攻的五天前，她会见了乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基，“警告他俄罗斯的入侵计划”。他们在德国慕尼黑安全会议上会面，当时美国几个月来一直在公开和私下警告入侵，并已经与乌克兰军队合作做准备。
特朗普会继续尝试粘住哈里斯拜登记录中不太光彩的部分。周一，他预计将访问阿灵顿国家公墓，向三年前在灾难性的美国从阿富汗撤军期间在喀布尔机场外爆炸中丧生的军人致敬。特朗普随后将前往密歇根州，在美国国民警卫队协会会议上发表讲话。
哈里斯在2021年8月向美国有线电视新闻网证实，她是拜登做出撤军决定时，房间里所谓的最后一个人。
“这是一位有着非凡勇气的总统，”她当时告诉电视网。“我希望美国公众有时能看到我所看到的，因为最终——决定总是取决于他——但我一次又一次地看到他完全基于他认为正确的东西做出决定。不管政界人士告诉他什么，这都符合他的最大利益。”
哈里斯现在传达的信息中隐含的论点是，拜登也是过去政治的一部分——即使她认为他的记录是正确的，并公开称赞他。哈里斯在大会后的第一个全国广告旨在与特朗普形成代际对比。“我们需要思考未来，而不是专注于过去的政治。”
奥巴马的前助手丹·普发尔说，选民们“渴望一个新的、更有希望的政治。”
“如果她能向人们证明她能翻过这一页，那么卡玛拉·哈里斯就会赢，”她说。
She's the sitting VP and the candidate of change: How Harris is having it both ways
WASHINGTON --She’s the sitting vice president who has been in office for 3 1/2 years. She’s also the presidential candidate of just five weeks promising a “new way forward.”
Kamala Harrisis having it both ways as she hits the campaign trail after theDemocratic National Convention, taking credit for parts ofPresident Joe Biden'srecord in rallies staged in front of Air Force Two while casting herself as a new leader who rails against “the politics of the past."
In every presidential cycle candidates run on experience or freshness, but Harris so far appears to be successfully harmonizing two seemingly competing messages, much to the frustration of former PresidentDonald Trumpand his allies.
“She has this powerful and unique and interesting advantage that we have never seen before in our politics,” said Patrick Gaspard, CEO of the Democratic-leaning think tank Center for American Progress Action Fund and a former executive director of the Democratic National Committee under President Barack Obama.
“She is both an incumbent,” he said, and “she’s been able to seize the ‘change’ banner away from Donald Trump.”
Harris’ vision for the country has leaned heavily on Biden plans, to the point of not rewriting those plans even after Biden dropped out. Theplatform approved by the DNCwas passed last week with frequent — and outdated — mentions of a Biden “second term.”
Her presentation as someone offering a “new way forward” relies in large part on being someone different from the norm. The 59-year-old daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants replaced an 81-year-old white man who first ran for president 36 years ago. She is running to become the nation's first female president and first Black woman or person of South Asian descent to serve.
Two-thirds of Democrats wanted Biden to drop out after his debate performance against Trump, which crystallized longstanding concerns among the public and many prominent Democrats in private about his readiness.
Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, said Harris’ ability to embody change has “a lot more to do with her age, her race and her gender, than it has to do with any policy positions that she’s articulated.” He added, “That shouts change.”
In the view of her aides, Harris is offering what voters seem to have been craving all year: a new messenger, but one thus far offering modest evolution of the Biden-Harris record.
“She is her own leader, of course,” Brian Nelson, her senior campaign policy adviser, told reporters at a Bloomberg event at the DNC. “But she’s a leader who has been a partner to President Biden for these last three and a half years,” adding, they have “shared values and principles.”
The Trump campaign has attacked her lack of policy specifics and tried to portray her as someone far more liberal than she’s letting on. Perhaps trying to set expectations before new polls emerge, the campaign predicted on Saturday that Harris would see a post-convention bump in her polling and blamed what it called the “Harris Honeymoon.”
"We’ve certainly had a front row seat to the ‘honeymoon,’" wrote Trump pollsters Tony Fabrizio and Travis Tunis. “In fact, the Media decided to extend the honeymoon for over 4 weeks now.”
Harris' campaign announced Sunday that it raised $82 million during the week of the Democratic National Convention and a staggering $540 million since Biden quit the race and endorsed her on July 21.
Harris has sought to take credit for parts of Biden's foreign policy record. In her convention address, she said she had met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “to warn him about Russia's plan to invade” five days before Russia launched its full-scale attack. They met at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, at a time when the U.S. had been warning publicly and privately for months about an invasion and already working with Ukrainian forces to prepare.
Trump willcontinue trying to stick Harriswith the less rosy parts of the Biden record. On Monday, he is expected to visit Arlington National Cemetery to pay his respects to service members killed in the bombing outside Kabul airport three years ago during the calamitous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump will then go to Michigan to address the National Guard Association of the United States conference.
Harris confirmed to CNN in August 2021 that she was the so-called last person in the room when Biden made his decision to withdraw.
“This is a president who has an extraordinary amount of courage,” she told the network then. “I wish that the American public can see sometimes what I see, because ultimately – and the decision always rests with him – but I have seen him over and over again make decisions based exactly on what he believes is right. Regardless of what maybe the political people tell him is in his best self-interest.”
Implicit in Harris' messaging now is the argument that Biden was also part of the politics of the past — even as she takes credit for his record and lauds him publicly. Harris’ first national ad after the convention aims to lean into the generational contrast with Trump. “Instead of being focused on the politics of the past, we need to be thinking about the future.”
Voters, said former Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer, "are thirsting for a new, more hopeful politics.”
“If she can prove to people that she can turn the page, then Kamala Harris will win,” she said.
