The Defining Moments of the D.N.C. Finale
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Last night was the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on earth, I accept your nomination to be president by the states of America.

And at the end of the night, Vice President Kamala Harris took the stage to end the week and formally accept her party's nomination. And after it was all over, my colleagues and I set up in our booth outside the arena to talk through what stood out to us. From the New York Times and from the United Center, for the last time, I'm Ested Herndon. This is The Run-Up. I'm so excited to be here.

With my pals in the very noisy tent that we've been recording in all week with helicopters swirling around us in the parking lot of the United Center. Can you just introduce yourselves and tell us what you typically cover? I'm Jenny Medina. I cover politics for The Times and I mostly cover voters, talking to them about what they think and what they feel is the most important.

I am Maya King. I cover politics in the Southeast. I'm based in Georgia, so I also cover that state as a battleground state and Black voters nationally. Yeah, and part of the reason I thought that y'all would be a great conversation for this is because we all kind of focus on different parts of the electorate, kind of what voters are saying across the country, and I think can really speak to what Democrats have been trying to do this week.

in terms of building a coalition that can be as big as possible to beat Donald Trump in November. So I want to go through one moment that mattered to each of you all, that really sticks out to how Harris is trying to build that coalition. But before we do that, I would be just curious to say, like, how would you describe this week overall? Like, if you could pick a word that describes how Democrats were or what you think encapsulates the week, what would you say? Relief. Relief.

I think a lot of what you see from Democrats this week, obviously this excitement, exuberance, this is the pep rally that they've been wanting to have. But as much as they were celebrating Harris and her political rise, they were also expressing what I found to be real relief that they had a candidate in her who was an effective speaker and who had a better chance of taking on Donald Trump. People told me that they were excited to see a prosecutor reelect.

prosecuting the case against Trump. So I feel like as much as we were hearing from folks who were really excited about their candidate, they were also feeling like they actually had a shot where they didn't just a month ago. Yeah, I mean, we've said this a hundred times, but this is not where they obviously were two months ago. And Democrats...

have frankly found an exit route that's appeared out of nowhere. And you're saying the sense of excitement that was here this week and probably this week is not just because of their excitement about their actual candidate, but also the fact that they have found a refuge where it didn't seem like one would appear. Yes, exactly. You said exit ramp, and the ramp is sort of pointing upward instead of off, you know, this road. Yeah, a ditch. Yes. An actual exit ramp rather than like a side of the road. Totally, exactly, exactly.

Jenny, do you have a word that you would describe this week as? I mean, the thing that keeps coming to mind, and it's a little what the Democrats would want us to say, but is optimism. I mean, there are so many people that I have talked to in the last year, I'm sure both of you have too, who feel this sense of dread and fear and anxiety. And Democrats for so long, and Biden specifically, made their whole case as, we are not Trump.

Trump has kind of come after you. We're not Trump. It's all about fearing Trump. And I think what Democrats try to do this week is add to that message, like portray we've got something else. We've got some hope. Yeah.

I think that makes a lot of sense. I think my word would be diversity. I mean, it's kind of obvious, but also being at the RNC last month, I'm reminded of when Democrats can unleash the full version of themselves. That includes so many different types of people when they can tell a different story of America and when they really can have that be reflected in the type of people on the stage or the type of people who are in the audience.

It just is palpably different. But I think I want us to all pick a moment that really stuck out to us from the night that speaks to how Harris in this campaign is trying to build a coalition that can beat Donald Trump and the Republicans. Maya, I want to start with you. Is there any moment from this night that really for you spoke to something that may represent the Kamala Harris promise of this campaign?

What comes to mind for me is this moment of all these folks who were impacted by gun violence, led by Lucy McBath, the representative from Georgia, who has been a longtime advocate and activist against gun violence. I saw firsthand the power of telling our stories. You've just heard mine, but there are many more to tell.

All of them sharing these really, really just jarring personal stories. On December 14th, 2012, I walked into Sandy Hook School. I was in high school when my classmate got shot. It changed my story. My phone rang. Shooting on the beach. No one can find Sandy. I stayed calm. Uvalde is national news. Parents everywhere reach for their children.

I reach out for the daughter I will never hold again. I mean, it was really an incredible scene. On this stage, sort of blacked out, you have, I think, five spotlights with all of these people standing and all being given quite a bit of time to tell these really heart-wrenching personal stories. And so I felt like that was a really...

effective use of stage production. And Harris herself has also been a really outspoken person on this topic. We saw the footage later on before her speech, you know, looking at this crowd of very young people saying, raise your hand if you've ever had to go through a gun drill, if you've had to hide under your desk and the whole room basically raising their hands. So,

So, you know, here we have in Harris this person who, of course, is a prosecutor, has a lot of legal experience. I think this is something that really appeals to people who have been deeply impacted and who have lost family members to gun violence. And this is also a thing that she's focused on in the office of vice president. She created the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, something she talks about a lot as a signature policy issue from her time in office.

Can you tell a little more about the personal story of Lucy McBath and how that relates to, you think, the coalition Harris is trying to build? So, McBath is a congresswoman from Georgia. Her son, Jordan, was killed several years ago. He was shot and killed by a gunman several years ago.

After that, she became this real national figure in advocating for an end to gun violence. She then sort of rose in the ranks of that movement and later was elected to Congress, is obviously a very, very popular Democrat in Georgia, and has been floated as a possible governor candidate in 2026.

I think that in McBath, especially someone who represents a suburban Atlanta district that has a lot of different groups that Harris is going to need to win. So not only black voters and folks who are largely a part of the Democratic coalition, but.

white moms who care about gun violence and who care about their kids being safe in school. McBath is able to talk to a lot of those voters. And these are the kinds of validators I think that Harris is going to need to also be able to make this case. Yeah. And I mean, McBath also represents some of the new bench of Democrats who have been elected to office since

the 2016 election. It was noticeable this week just how many people you had on the stage who represent kind of the next version of the Democratic Party. It kind of felt like they weren't just passing a torch from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris, but passing a torch from basically one Democratic bench to the next that looks and sounds differently than the last one. Y'all think that's fair? I think

that's right. And I feel like that's been a theme of the week as well as Democrats not only underlining how happy they are to have Harris in this position as their nominee, but showing off their deep bench of candidates and people who can also make these arguments. I think, too, what really strikes me about the image that Maya was describing with all these victims of gun violence, survivors of gun violence, as they put it, who stood up there, they were all different shades. They all came from different socioeconomic backgrounds. You know, I think a lot of times

We think, oh, you're Black, you care about criminal justice. You're Latino, you care about immigration reform. And the campaign really this week tried to make a very concerted effort, I think, of cutting across

what are typically thought of as being Black issues, Latino issues, Asian issues. After, I want to just add, if I can, to what Maya said, right after that group came on, Gabby Giffords came on. And Gabby Giffords was shot in the head in 2011, January of 2011, while she was at a grocery store doing an event with constituents. I covered that shooting, and I remember so vividly, we all thought that was

Such a crazy aberration. And now there's been God knows how many mass shootings since then. And for Harris to sort of acknowledge that, especially as they are so focused on joy, was pretty interesting, pretty extraordinary. Definitely one of the most powerful moments of the evening. Jenny, do you have a moment from this night that really stuck out to you and speaks to the type of coalition Harris is trying to build?

Yeah, I'm never one to think about predicting what people are going to say, but I was really taken aback when Harris started to speak about the war in Gaza. That has, of course, been a huge undercurrent of what's been going on this week and in the Democratic Party. People who are furious at what they see in Gaza and, you know, had really threatened to upend the DNC. And I expected, knowing what I know of Harris and just sort of

perhaps having a low bar, expected her to ignore that. And she is not somebody who has major foreign policy credentials. And she sort of took a turn in the speech and went really hard by acknowledging what was happening in Gaza. What specifically about what she said most stuck out to you? She came out of talking about Putin and Ukraine and Russia and then said,

kind of all of a sudden. Now is the time to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done.

And when she said, "Get a ceasefire deal done," the room really exploded, really gave her enormous applause. And it was hard to tell, actually, in that moment, what are people applauding for? Are they applauding for getting a hostage deal, a ceasefire? Like, what does that really mean? And she went on, and it wasn't very long. It was about four more, five more sentences, but tried to walk this line. I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself

And I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself. She said, let me be clear, Israel needs to be protected from Hamas. And at the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost.

Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking. What's happened in Gaza has been devastating. There's been too many innocent lives lost and Palestinians have rights as well. And she really tried to walk this line of

giving something to both sides. Of course, this comes in the backdrop of a week in which the tensions around Israel and Gaza were certainly a pressure point for the DNC. We talked to some uncommitted delegates this week who are asking the DNC to have a Palestinian speaker on the stage. That, to the crest, was denied. And there was some protest action around it today. People held a sit-in that I saw. I was wondering for you all, what was the reaction to what she said in the hall?

Well, as she was saying this, there were a few, not anything disruptive or not all massive, but there were shouts a few times. I was sitting up in the very top section and I could hear Free Palestine more than once. But the reaction of the room seemed to me to be one of relief or of shock. I think what she seemed to successfully do in that moment was,

is give something to lots of different people. On the one hand, there are a bunch of Jewish voters who lean to the right on Israel, who have made it very clear that they are skeptical of her and her administration.

And then on the other hand, there are a bunch of voters, uncommitted voters, people who were talking about abandoning Biden, who have made it very clear that they want to see more from her. They appreciate how she has talked about Palestinians so far, but they want to see some kind of policy change. And I think she appeased people in her language, but didn't promise anything in terms of policy. She gave sort of this really broad perspective

scope and didn't give in to the idea that it's a zero-sum game. And I think that's what you saw a positive reaction for. I'll just add, too, I mean, this is a topic that has really divided the Democratic Party over the last year. And she is really trying to walk a very thin line with that and speak to both sides of this issue.

And, you know, Biden, when he was on the campaign trail, you couldn't go anywhere without him being heckled or having to stop his remarks because someone was protesting, immediately calling for a ceasefire. Harris has not really had that experience yet. I think it remains to be seen after tonight, now that she has fully waded into this.

if we can expect to see more protesters at her events. But I was really struck to see her, you know, give this full-throated explanation of kind of where she stands on this now, which is right in the middle, and she can't be there forever. You know, it's interesting. There's been, you mentioned there was not any Palestinian-American speaker at the

the convention. But there were two things that I'm thinking of in the last week. One was the parents of one of the hostages who's in Gaza, and another is a rabbi from Los Angeles who both spoke really explicitly of wanting there to be dignity for both groups, for Palestinians and for Israeli Jews. And that's what I think Harris was trying to do.

Yeah, I mean, that's kind of one thing I wanted to ask, linking both of these issues that you all mentioned. It seems like a continuation of a political philosophy that Harris has exhibited for a long time, which is that you don't have to choose. You don't have to pick one side or the other, that you can kind of reflect values in a way that chooses the best decision in front of you. It seems like a very core value to what makes up the Kamala Harris worldview. We spend a lot of time among the electorate, and we specifically spend a lot of time among the groups in which the Democratic Party has struggled the most with,

over the last year being young voters black voters latino voters do you all think that message of being everything to everyone is one that can work uh until november i mean what do you think the standard will be maya for young voters for black voters for people in georgia the place in which you live like does she have to speak to the specifics to motivate people or can it be something

where by embodying a large scale democratic or liberal values or by, you know, invalidating Donald Trump on the other side, that that may be enough.

You know, there's going to be, I think, a critical mass of voters who are going to support her regardless. But the folks that I've talked to have said that they are kind of waiting for a bit more definition from her. And I think that was one of the goals of this week was to actually define her not only in personal terms as an individual, but to try to put a little bit more of a frame around who she is and what she stands for. I guess that's what I'm asking. Do we think that she has been defined this week? Do we have do we did we learn more?

The radio silos are like, oh. I think she's been defined as a person. Do I think she's been defined as policy? You know, when I was sitting there up in the arena just now, I said to somebody like, oh, we're getting some policy here and there. And now as I take a breath and leave the excitement of a giant stadium, I realize, oh, there's not much policy. There's sort of notional ideas. There's sort of gauzy kumbaya notions. And how you translate that, I don't know. Yeah.

I agree. And I'm thinking about how this plays in a state like Georgia. I mean, one of the delegates to this convention who is from the Middle East and was not given a speaking slot after really lobbying for it, I think is really disappointed. And I want to know what she does in actually talking to Asian American voters or folks who are just who were really waiting to hear a little bit more from Harris this week. Both of these issues that we're talking about,

both gun control and foreign policy, essentially. We know again and again and again from research are not things that people usually vote on. And if it's a binary choice, as we think it's going to be, there are going to be people who say, what choice do I have? You know, and I think the question is always, is going to be the same question we had with Biden, which is, do you vote at all? It's the choice between voting for Harris-

and Trump, or is the choice between voting for Harris and just not voting? That's such a good point, Jenny, because we're really not in an election year that is so policy heavy that we're trying to sort of like split hairs between these two candidates. These are two starkly different candidates. And I think that the Harris campaign actually knows that.

And so they can really ride this wave of good feeling and of speaking to these general broad themes that are widely supported by Democratic voters while not actually getting into the weeds of anything that would really define a policy portfolio for her. Yeah, that really leads to one of my moments that really stuck out to me.

which is that at the beginning of Harris's speech, it really reminded me of her initial speech that she gave when she was running for president back in Oakland. In a specific part, because she talked about her father. She doesn't really do that all that often. At the park, my mother would say, stay close. But my father would say, as he smiled, run, Kamala, run. Don't be afraid. Don't let anything stop you.

And then she eventually mentions how her parents split up and all of that type of stuff. But it reminded me of just how much this is a first-time introduction for her to a lot of different voters and how much the campaign saw the task of this speech as one that was introducing her to people for the first time. So to your point, like, yeah, there may not have been a white paper in the speech, but they clearly were trying to accomplish a different task, which is to say, who is this person and what are their values?

I mean, I think the philosophy that we all know, that memes know, the Venn diagram, the idea of being both and, I think she did introduce that to people tonight in her speech and over the course of the week. And is that a white paper? No, but it's a governing philosophy. I mean, I thought it was fascinating to see Elizabeth Warren come out with tears in her eyes and give Kamala Harris the most enthusiastic endorsement. Here's a woman who, when she was a candidate, was putting out

You know, better than I do. Policy after policy. Yeah, the finest details. And she's like, pipe down, get in line and vote. I'm thinking about this conversation I had in Vegas right after Harris took the campaign. I went to a training where they were telling volunteers less facts, more stories. And Kamala Harris told her story this week. Interesting. This brings me to my real moment of this night. Yes.

I'm glad we talked about serious stuff so I could talk about the thing that actually I feel like was in the air, which is that Beyonce didn't show up. There were big rumors all week that that big moment could be a special guest, that there was going to be people that Beyonce, Taylor Swift, all of those type of names were thrown out here.

And those rumors were really persistent today. I don't know about you all, but all around the United Center today, even more than Kamala Harris, I feel like I was talking about Beyonce over and over and over because there was such expectation that she might be in the room. TMZ reported that she was going to be here. There was like actually a sense of expectation that there might be some big and special guest that would be, you know, pop star galore. I mean, I'm not crazy, right? Y'all heard that too? Yeah.

I took a bet on it, actually, with a friend. A friend to be not named? I'll name the friend. Just waiting for permission. Yes, there was an enormous amount of buzz about whether or not Beyoncé was going to show up. I was skeptical.

Yeah, I owe you one whole dollar. I mean, I would say, if I can make a dramatic political point from the lack of Beyonce showing up, is that I do think that the Harris campaign is raising expectations by the day. And I even had a Harris person tell me that one of the things that makes them nervous about the debate on September 10th

is the fact that her expectations might be too high going into that. The last month has fueled this sense of possibility, and Democrats have fueled this sense of possibility, saying that this is 2008 and things are coming back. And it does feel as if there's any kind of way that, you know, maybe this Thursday of the convention didn't live up to expectations. It's because, frankly, the expectations have grown so ridiculously high. Is that too much?

I'm going to take the role of scold here. Boring scold. Earnest scold. I think it's too much. I mean, we didn't come here for a concert. And...

All right, fine. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. I'm really uncool. I'm really uncool. I came to my first political convention for politics. I am not online. I have not been consuming all the memes and all the TikToks and all the things. So maybe I had lower expectations. But when she walked into that room with her giant smile, she sort of looks like

I can't believe this is happening, but damn, it's fun when she drops the little cuss words here and there, when she's just showing up and having a ball and then accepts the nomination. A Black woman, a South Asian woman accepting the nomination is a massive historic moment. And I don't think we should allow musical disappointments to overshadow that.

And I think like for all intents and purposes, this was a very successful speech, right? She defined herself. She was able to sort of get across all these points that are very widely popular with Democrats. We've talked extensively about, you know, where she might have fallen short. But like for the folks in the room, this was a very, very successful speech. And for the folks at home, I think we'll see.

But yes, we were certainly in the room, I think, waiting for some sort of a celebrity. But that's also because so much star power has really been a feature of this campaign. And it's only been a month. Mm-hmm.

You know, that's a fair point to make. And I also think it's worth remembering what Donald Trump didn't do at the RNC. There was so much expectation of Donald Trump's RNC speech to show a disciplined version of himself, to show something that really capitalized on, I think, what was a lot of interest coming after the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. And what we got was a rally version of Trump's speech that didn't live up to any sense of expectation or discipline or focus or issue or the like.

And so I do think that, you know, no matter what happened earlier, the lack of Beyonce or Taylor Swift or whoever, what Kamala Harris definitely did is execute on the vision and rhetoric that Democrats want her to show. And I think that definitely puts them in a position to make the contrast that they want to make in this race. And it really, I think, sets up a candidate who will probably be on the ascendancy heading into the debate, which will be the next huge moment of this campaign.

Thank you all for chatting with me. I had a blast. Thanks. Thanks, Ested. That's The Run-Up for Friday, August 23rd, 2024. We'll see you next week. The Run-Up is reported by me, Ested Herndon, and produced by Elisa Gutierrez, Caitlin O'Keefe, and Anna Foley. It's edited by Rachel Dry and Lisa Tobin.

With original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, Diane Wong, Sophia Landman, and Alisha Ba'i-Tube. It was mixed by Alyssa Moxley and fact-checked by Caitlin Love. Special thanks to Paula Schumann, Sam Dolnick, Larissa Anderson, David Halfinger, Maddie Maciello, Mahima Chablani, Jeffrey Miranda, and Elizabeth Bristow.

Do you have questions about the 2024 election? Email us at therunupatnytimes.com. Or better yet, record your question using the voice memo app in your phone. That email again is therunupatnytimes.com. Thanks for listening, y'all.