Democrats are betting that within the American electorate is a deep desire to leave behind the bitterness of a decade dominated by former President Donald Trump.
And so, at the party’s convention Wednesday night in Chicago, a “joy” strategy — portraying Vice President Kamala Harris as the candidate who can move the nation forward — was on full display.
Former President Bill Clinton said Harris brings “sheer joy” to the 2024 race. Oprah Winfrey urged Americans to “choose joy.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg contrasted Trump’s “darkness” with the brand of politics offered by Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — which he said “just feels better to be part of.”
The message underscored how rapidly the 2024 presidential race has evolved since last month’s exit of President Joe Biden — whose campaign had been built around dire warnings that electing Trump would jeopardize democracy itself. Harris hasn’t abandoned those warnings, but has rewrapped them in a more forward-looking message emphasizing themes of freedom and joy – and Democrats paired it with a party.
Singer John Legend and drummer Sheila E. played Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.” Stevie Wonder performed “Higher Ground.”
And as alumni from the Mankato West High School football team, which won a state championship with Walz as an assistant coach, strode on stage in jerseys that no longer fit, a pep band blared the school’s fight song.
“Thank you for bringing the joy to this fight,” Walz told the crowd.
Here are six takeaways from the DNC’s third night:
A moment of this magnitude was new for Walz. Prior to his selection as Harris’ running mate, not only had he never delivered a high-stakes speech in front of a national audience — he’d never even used a teleprompter.
So in a convention filled with former presidents, congressional leaders, celebrities and more, Walz opted to be something else entirely.
He’s a two-term governor and a former congressman, but he leaned into earlier portions of his resume: High school teacher. Football coach. Hunter. Neighbor.
He used his speech to make the case that Democrats are the party of freedom.
“In Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and the choices that they make. And even if we wouldn’t make the same choices ourselves, we’ve got a golden rule: Mind your own damn business,” Walz said.
Walz touched on Harris’ policy positions on issues such as health care, abortion rights and homeownership. And he did so in populist tones at times reminiscent of the late Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone.
“When we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people you love. Freedom to make your own health care decisions. And yeah, your kids’ freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the hall,” Walz said.
“That’s what this is all about: The responsibility that we have to our kids, to each other and to the future we’re building together in which everyone is free to build the kind of life that they want.”
Still, the most memorable moment of Walz’s speech might have come when he discussed the fertility struggles he and his wife, Gwen Walz, faced.
“Hope, Gus and Gwen, you are my entire world, and I love you,” he said, naming his daughter, son and wife.
Gus Walz stood up, tears streaming down his face, and applauded his father.
Young left the stage as Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” blared through the United Center. Young had personally allowed the Harris campaign to use it — notable because four years earlier, he’d sued Trump’s campaign to stop it from doing so.
If other Democrats led a generational change Wednesday night, talk show legend Oprah Winfrey connected the historical dots — portraying Harris as emblematic of “the best of America.”
She told the story of Tessie Prevost, who died last month, and three other Black girls who faced hate and harassment when, as 6-year-old girls, they began the desegregation of New Orleans elementary schools in 1960.
Drawing the connection to Harris, the “New Orleans Four,” Winfrey said, “paved the way for another young girl who nine years later became part of the second class to integrate the public schools in Berkley, California.”
Now, she said, Harris is poised to make history.
“Soon and very soon, we’re going to be teaching our daughters and sons about how this child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, two idealistic and energetic immigrants — immigrants — how this child grew up to become the 47th president of the United States,” Winfrey said.
“That is the best of America,” she said, as the crowd erupted into a “U-S-A” chant.
She invoked the Republican vice presidential nominee, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who in a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson complained that the United States is being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives.”
“We are not so different from our neighbors, Winfrey said. “When a house is on fire, we do not ask about the homeowners’ race or religion. We don’t wonder who their partner is or how they voted. No. We just try to do the best we can to save them. And if the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady — well, we try to get that cat out, too.”
In pictures: The 2024 Democratic National Convention
‘For the people’ vs. ‘Me, myself and I’
Bill Clinton, who former President Barack Obama once dubbed the explainer-in-chief, framed the election as a choice between Harris being “for the people” or Trump being “about me, myself and I.”
“I know which one I like better for our country,” the former president said.
Though Clinton’s influence within the party has waned in the more than 23 years since he left office, no Democrat has been able to replicate his appeal to White working-class voters who have slipped away from the party since Clinton’s heyday — a reality that makes his once-every-four-years appearance at the convention an anticipated moment.
He touched on Harris’ positions on housing and health care policies, and he credited Democrats for job growth. But for the most part, Clinton used his speech to cast Trump as self-obsessed and Harris as a clean break from the drama that encompasses the former president.
He said Trump “mostly talks about himself.”
“So the next time you hear him, don’t count the lies. Count the I’s,” he said. “His vendettas, his vengeance, his complaints, his conspiracies.”
In the Democratic Party, it’ll soon be here.
While the main job of the party’s convention is to propel Harris into the fall with momentum, this year’s gathering in Chicago has also served as a generational hand-off.
Several of the party’s aging figures — including Biden, Clinton and his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton; and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — acknowledged the twilight of their influence and the emergence of new faces.
Bill Clinton — who at 78 is keenly aware that he has lived longer than his father, grandfather and great-grandfather — told the crowd Wednesday night that he’s been to every Democratic National Convention since 1972 and has “no idea how many more of these I’ll be able to come to.”
“But here’s what I want you to know,” he said. “If you vote for this team — if you can get them elected and let them bring in this breath of fresh air — you’ll be proud of it for the rest of your life. Your children will be proud of it. Your grandchildren will be proud of it.”
Evoking memories of the 1992 convention in New York where the Hope, Arkansas, native was first nominated, he said: “Take it from the man who once had the honor in this convention to be called the man from Hope: We need Kamala Harris, the president of joy, to lead us.”
Clinton also praised Biden, saying that voluntarily relinquishing political power will enhance his legacy. He was followed on stage by Pelosi, the most powerful woman in American political history, who played a role in ushering Biden aside for Harris.
Pelosi, 84, had of course already facilitated a generational change on Capitol Hill. She stepped aside as House Democratic leader in 2022 and was replaced by New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who is 30 years younger.
Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin — an Israeli-American who was kidnapped by Hamas while attending the Nova music festival on October 7 — shared their “anguish and misery” Wednesday in one of the night’s most poignant moments.
“Since then, we live on another planet. Anyone who is a parent or has had a parent can try to imagine the anguish and misery that Jon and I and all the hostage families are enduring,” Goldberg-Polin said.
The two said they’ve met “numerous times” at the White House with Biden and Harris.
“We are all deeply grateful to them,” Jon Polin. “We’re also profoundly thankful to you, the millions of people in the United States and all over the world, who have been sending love, support and strength to the hostage families. You’ve kept us breathing in a world without air.”
Acknowledging the deaths of civilians in Gaza, Polin also said that “there is a surplus of agony on all sides” of Israel’s war with Hamas.
Their comments came as Democrats grapple with tension over US support for Israel’s war with Hamas and the civilian casualties that have resulted. Progressives’ criticism of Biden on the issue led to campus protests and “uncommitted” votes in some states’ presidential primaries this spring.
About an hour before the family spoke, Abbas Alawieh, a co-founder of the Uncommitted Nation Network, said he welcomed the hostage parents’ speech – but pressed again for a Palestinian-American voice to be given the same time.
Hours later, Uncommitted received the news that their request for a speaking spot had been denied, and members reacted by staging a sit-in outside the United Center. They held banners that said “Arms embargo now” and “Not another bomb,” urging an end to US military supplies for Israel’s war effort. Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar briefly joined the group.
Though Harris has put her own spin on the Democratic message since replacing Biden atop the ticket, the theme that had been at the core of the president’s reelection campaign — defending democracy — remains key.
Aquilino Gonell, a former US Capitol Police sergeant, said that Trump “summoned our attackers” who rioted at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as Congress was gathered to count electoral college votes.
Gonnell, who immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic when he was 12 and served in the Army, said that Trump “betrayed us.”
“We officers risked everything to protect innocent people. We were beaten and blinded. I was assaulted with a pole attached to an American flag.”
Democrats made the insurrection, and Trump’s broader effort to overturn the 2020 election results, a focus on Wednesday night.
Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican, and Olivia Troye, a former national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, also took the stage in Chicago.
“To my fellow Republicans, you aren’t voting for a Democrat; you’re voting for democracy,” Troye said. “You aren’t betraying our party; you’re standing up for our country.”
