There are, broadly, two ways to become the presidential nominee of one of America’s two major political parties. One is to rise up as an insider, brushing past rivals while taking advantage of a family name, a long run in Congress or the mentorship of powerful elders. Think of the two Bush presidents and Joe Biden. The other way is to win as an outsider, through charisma and chutzpah. Barack Obama and Donald Trump did that. Kamala Harris, the clear front-runner to become the Democratic nominee following Mr Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, belongs emphatically to the first camp. To understand her prospects, start here: Ms Harris is a creature of institutional politics, not a visionary or an ideologue.

The politics that shaped Ms Harris were California’s—quirky, fluid, and future-focused. When she came of political age in the 1990s, the Republican Party was a potent force in the state. While working as a local prosecutor in Oakland, Ms Harris dated Willie Brown, a Democratic kingmaker 30 years her senior; he helped to launch her political career. Later, under her own steam, she won stepping-stone elections as a prosecutor by leaning to the right on criminal-justice issues, while also appealing to Democrats, and was elected as the state’s attorney-general in 2010. When her party moved left, she changed positions on issues such as the death penalty, which she supported initially and then opposed. Her critics dismissed her as an opportunist long on ambition and short on convictions, a reputation she has had difficulty shaking off.