The big surprise of the American political summer was not so much Joe Biden's late withdrawal from the campaign (a relief for many Democrats) as the sudden revelation of Kamala Harris. Deprived of initiative for four years in her role as vice president, too easily accused of incompetence on difficult issues such as immigration, she immediately asserted herself as credible presidential material in late July and injected new energy into the Democratic campaign. A proliferation of enthusiastic rallies and a tenfold increase in contributions proved the point.

The convention that took place in Chicago from Monday, August 19 to Thursday, August 22 enabled the candidate to reinforce this positive momentum, but above all to present her vision of the US, detailing the points of her platform during the nomination speech she delivered on Thursday evening. Kamala Harris asserted herself as a resolute moderate, seeking above all to unite and calm voters. While she recalled the journey of her mother, who came from India to study in the US and who taught her courage, at no point did Harris present the fact that she herself would be the first Black woman president if elected. In fact, she didn't even mention it once.

Her most left-wing plans concern the economy, but it remains in line with the current president's "Bidenomics" and even with certain proposals from the Trump side. The aim is to restore prosperity to the middle classes, damaged by the excesses of globalization. She plans to cut taxes for 100 million middle-income households. For the rest, her proposals are relatively consensus-based.

Full-blown denunciation of Trump

Harris denounced attacks on women's rights to control their own bodies, known as "reproductive rights," a subject now accepted well beyond the Democratic electorate. In another centrist marker, Harris also announced that she wanted to better control illegal immigration by taking up a bill prepared in the spring by a group of Democratic and Republican senators. This very strict bipartisan bill provides, among other things, for the possibility of closing the border with Mexico in the event of mass arrivals of asylum seekers. In May, Donald Trump called on senators from his own party to vote against the bill, as it would have taken populist fuel away from his campaign.

Finally, Harris took a middle position on the much-anticipated issue of Gaza. She pledged to maintain the American alliance with Israel but also denounced the suffering inflicted on the Palestinian civilian population. It was crucial for the candidate to respond to the protesters on the left of the party, even though their demonstrations on the fringes of the convention did not create disorder. Comparisons with the August 1968 anti-Vietnam War riots at another Democratic convention in Chicago came to nothing. It remains to be seen how this in-between position could play out concretely in the event of victory ...

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