The path for Vice-President Kamala Harris to secure the Democratic presidential nomination is clearing.
That may end up being the easy part. The most formidable challenge – defeating Republican nominee Donald Trump in November – is still to come. Her elevation to the top of ticket would bring new strengths for the Democrats, but it also exposes weaknesses that were less of a concern with Mr Biden.
According to recent polls, Ms Harris trails the former president slightly – a roughly similar position to the one Mr Biden found himself in before his historic announcement. But there may be more room for those numbers to shift as we move from a hypothetical matchup to a very real one.
For at least a moment, Democrats have a jolt of energy after more than three weeks of intense hand-wringing over the president’s fitness and ability to sustain his campaign.
All of Ms Harris’s leading potential rivals for the nomination have endorsed her, as has former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi – who remains one of the most influential players in Democratic politics.
The vice-president’s primary challenge – and opportunity – will be to capitalise on this Trump aversion, attract centrist voters in key swing states and energise the Democratic base, which was in the past few weeks swinging towards despair, to match the enthusiasm many on the right hold for the former president.Kamala Harris: From prosecutor to possible president… in 100 seconds
A reset?
This renewed sense of Democratic presidential enthusiasm comes with a dollar sign attached. According to the Harris campaign, the vice-president raised more than $80m (£62m) in new donations in the 24 hours since Mr Biden’s announcement – the biggest one-day total of any candidate this election cycle. That, along with the nearly $100m she inherits from the Biden-Harris fundraising coffers, gives her a firm financial footing for the campaign to come.
Ms Harris, if she becomes the nominee, also defuses one of the most effective attacks the Republicans have levelled against their opponent: his age.
For months, the Trump campaign has been pounding Mr Biden for being feeble and easily confused – characterisations that were reinforced for many Americans after the president’s halting debate performance four weeks ago.
The vice-president, at age 59, will be a more energetic campaigner and able to make a more coherent case for her party. She could also turn the 78-year-old Trump’s age against him, as he would become the oldest person ever elected president.
Ms Harris may also be able to shore up support from black voters, who polls indicate had been drifting away from Mr Biden in recent months. If she can combine that with more backing from other minorities and younger voters – Barack Obama’s winning coalition from 2008 and 2012 – it could help her gain ground against Trump in the handful of swing states that will decide this year’s election.
Her background as a prosecutor could also burnish tough-on-crime credentials. While her law-enforcement resume was a liability when she ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019 – and led to derisive “Kamala is a cop” attacks from the left – it could help her in a campaign against Trump.
“I think she reminds suburban women across the country, particularly in those battleground states, of what’s at stake with reproductive rights,” former New York congressman Steve Israel, who headed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told the BBC’s Americast podcast.
“We have established a fundamental reset in the campaign.”
Harris’s vulnerabilities
For all Harris’s potential strengths, there is a reason why some Democrats were initially reluctant to push Mr Biden to step aside, given that his running mate would be the clear successor.
Republicans are already condemning her as the president’s “border czar”, attempting to make her the face of what public opinion polls have found is the Biden administration’s unpopular immigration policies.
“Immigration is a soft spot for Democrats in those battleground areas,” Mr Israel said. “This is a very salient issue for voters living in those suburbs, fairly or unfairly. They believe that our immigration system is not managed strongly enough.”
The Trump campaign will also try to turn the vice-president’s prosecutorial background against her – both by highlighting the former president’s record of enacting criminal justice reform and by attacking her past prosecutorial and parole decisions.
Her one solo run for national office – a bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination – ended in ruins. While she surged early, a combination of fumbled interviews, a lack of clearly defined vision and a poorly managed campaign led her to drop out before even the earliest primary contests.Kamala Harris: ‘I know Donald Trump’s type’
First impressions
Perhaps the biggest challenge for Ms Harris is that, unlike the president, she is not the incumbent. While she might have the opportunity to distance herself from some of the more unpopular elements of Mr Biden’s record, she also does not have the luxury of being a known quantity for voters.
Expect a furious effort by Republicans to paint Ms Harris as too untested and too risky to be president. In effect, Trump now has a greater claim to being the only proven commodity.
As the past four weeks have shown, fortunes in the White House race can shift quickly and permanently. Ms Harris has punched her ticket to the biggest stage in American politics – now she has to show she can compete.