Back on July 5, Christina Sinicki was standing on the risers right behind President Biden for a rally that was also a rescue mission in Madison.
Biden was trying to fighthis way back from a debate performance that caused his party to question if he should still be at the top of the ticket. He walked off the stage to Tom Petty’s 1989 hit, ‘I Won’t Back Down.”
Sinicki says there was energy in the room. “But it was more of an energy like, ‘We have to do this. This was our hope – we have to do this,” the state representative remembered.
Fast forward to this week. Biden was out of the race, and Vice President Harris was in.
And Sinicki was in what she described as a mosh pit in the gymnasium at a high school just outside of Milwaukee. The campaign says there were 3,000 people there.
Harris walked in to Beyonce’s “Freedom,” and anthem with the line: “I’ma keep running 'cause a winner don't quit on themselves.”
“I stood there in the crowd and I just looked around and I thought: I haven’t seen this since 2008. The energy level was off the charts,” Sinicki said. “I had a group of young women around me who had never been to one of these before. And as soon as the vice president came out they were just screaming. It’s as if she was a rock star.”
This tale of two rallies is a tangible sign of the vibe shift among Democrats, who have been on an emotional rollercoaster for the past few weeks: from grim determination as Biden fought to hang on to his push for a second term, to outright exuberance after he stepped aside and Harris launched her campaign.
The Milwaukee rally was the biggest crowd for Democrats this campaign cycle. In less than a week, the Harris campaign raised record-breaking sums and signed up more than 100,000 new volunteers
On Saturday, Harris will be in Pittsfield, Mass., for what the party says is the largest fundraiser in the Berkshires since Michelle Obama was there in 2012. The reception is expected to raise more than $1.4 million, a million more than the original goal.
Almost overnight, the vice president has eclipsed the president. Videos and memes of Harris are everywhere.
“We’ve all gone from doom scrolling to hope scrolling,” said Katie Paris, the founder of Red Wine and Blue – a group with about 500,000 members that organizes suburban women around reproductive freedom and pushing back on book bans, among other issues.
“That feels good. I know I shouldn’t be looking at TikTok before I go to bed at night anyway. But before it wasn’t very good for my mental health – and now I feel like I can kind of make an excuse for it,” she said. ”It’s like joy is back in town.”
This honeymoon phase will end, said Democratic strategist Guy Cecil, warning the election will be a close race, despite this newfound exuberance in his party.
But he takes solace in a change he’s seeing in public and private polling. Voters are saying they are excited to vote for Harris and not just against Trump. That’s new.
“Fear and anger and concern about Trump can definitely motivate people. But having hope and optimism and some excitement about your candidate is a really important tool,” he said.
Because, he says, when the honeymoon is over it’s better to have someone you love at your side, for the inevitable hard times.
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