The Observer view: Kamala Harris has risen above doubters, now she must stay on high ground

The speed and single-mindedness with which Kamala Harris secured the Democratic presidential nomination following Joe Biden’s sudden decision last weekend to step aside was astounding. Few expected the vice-president to attract a sufficient number of delegates and political endorsements prior to the party’s Chicago convention on 19 August, if then. Instead, Harris soared into an unassailable position within 48 hours of the White House announcement. Potential rivals tamely fell away. Now, even former president Barack Obama, who was said to have reservations and loves to meddle, has thrown his weight behind her .

Harris’s candidacy is of historic importance, and her feat has united the Democratic party, which many had thought impossible. It has also dispelled one of the main criticisms of her: that she lacks necessary drive and focus. After becoming vice-president in 2021, Harris was routinely dismissed as short on charisma and basic political skills. The conventional wisdom in Washington was that Biden selected her because she is a woman with black and Asian American roots, not on her merits. Her chances of attaining the Oval Office were widely, though not universally, discounted.

Harris’s meteoric ascent to the top of the ticket has proved the doubters hopelessly wrong. It is also a cautionary lesson about the still far-too-common tendency, in politics and other male-dominated milieux, to underestimate women, even women with proven track records. It’s worth quoting Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, on this subject. Like Harris, she was a senator. She also served as US secretary of state. And like Harris, she was constantly belittled, patronised and insulted – a target not only of partisanship but of prejudice and blatant misogyny.

“ Ms Harris is chronically underestimated, as are so many women in politics, but she is well prepared, ” Clinton wrote last week. “As a prosecutor and attorney-general in California, she took on drug traffickers, polluters and predatory lenders… As vice-president, she has sat with the president, helping make the hardest decisions a leader can make. And when the extremist supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, she became the administration’s most passionate and effective advocate for restoring women’s reproductive rights.”

Harris is well placed to build her candidacy around these achievements, which include her championing of voting rights, education and climate issues as well as women’s health. On foreign policy, she knows her own mind, as she demonstrated last week when she warned visiting prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that she “ will not be silent ” over Israel’s mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Unsurprisingly, Harris, 59, connects better with younger voters than did Biden. And women voters, who typically participate in larger numbers than men, may prove pivotal . The latest polls, and record fundraising among white and black women via Zoom , reflect this. Harris has momentum. She is now virtually tied with Donald Trump .

No one should doubt Harris faces an uphill battle if she is to prevail on 5 November. Trump is a vicious, unscrupulous, resourceful opponent. He is already on the attack, calling her a “bum” and a “ radical-left lunatic ”, disrespectfully garbling her first name (to underline her supposed foreign-ness) and distorting her record. Trump shamelessly, continually lies. Yet the fact he is a convicted criminal, bigot and sexual predator seems to enhance his appeal among certain voters.

His choice of JD Vance, a far-right white nationalist, as running mate is an indicator of the coming misogynist, sexist and racist onslaught. Mocking Harris for having no biological children, Vance once vilified her as a “miserable cat lady ” lacking a stake in the country. If they sense they are losing, Trump and the Republicans will go even lower and dirtier. Harris and America are better than that. She must find ways to rise above it – and win.