WILMINGTON, Del. — The Democrats’ historic boundary breakers are joining forces at the party’s national convention in an unprecedented effort to mobilize the diverse coalition Joe Biden will need to defeat President Donald Trump this fall.
Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, and Hillary Clinton, the first woman nominated for president by a major party, are speaking on Biden’s behalf Tuesday night. And Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate and the first Black woman on a major party ticket, will deliver highly anticipated remarks that will serve as her first introduction to millions of voters.
Just 76 days before the election, voters in both parties are as engaged in politics as they have ever been, even while battling a pandemic that has left more than 172,000 dead and millions more out of work. Having formally been nominated by their party, the Biden-Harris ticket is now the Democrats’ best and only hope to deny Trump another four years in office.
The pandemic has forced Biden’s team to abandon the traditional convention format in favor of an all-virtual affair that has eliminated much of the pomp and circumstance that typically defines political conventions. It’s also produced opportunities to create new traditions.
On Tuesday night, Biden celebrated his formal nomination in a school library with his family. Instead of a Milwaukee convention hall as initially planned, the roll call of convention delegates played out in a combination of live and recorded video feeds from American landmarks packed with meaning: Alabama’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, the headwaters of the Mississippi River and Washington’s Black Lives Matter Plaza.
The Democratic convention will build to a finale Thursday night when Biden will deliver his acceptance speech Thursday in a mostly empty convention hall near his Delaware home.
Next week it’s Trump’s turn.
The president, who abandoned plans to host his convention in North Carolina and Florida, is expected to break tradition and accept his nomination from the White House lawn.
Trump has spent much of this week hosting campaign events in battleground states in an attempt to distract from the Democrats’ virtual festivities. While there is no travel expected on Wednesday, Trump on Tuesday claimed that a Biden presidency would trigger “a flood of illegal immigration like the world has never seen” during an Arizona appearance near the Mexican border.
Such divisive rhetoric, which is not supported by Biden’s positions, has become a hallmark of Trump’s presidency, which has inflamed tensions at home and alienated allies around the world.
Still, Biden’s team acknowledged that the Biden-Harris ticket must do more than promise a return to normalcy should they defeat Trump. The speakers Wednesday are expected to outline Biden’s path toward legitimate progress for all Americans.
“Joe knows its not enough to build back. We’ve got to build back better than ever,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in previewing Wednesday’s program.
Whitmer noted, for example, that women have made significant progress in politics recent years.
“But there’s so much more to be had,” she said. “Joe Biden’s a champion, and all ally we can trust in the White House, and by his side we’ll have the first female vice president in our history in Kamala Harris. As Joe often says, our nation was founded on a simple idea. We’re all created equal. We’ve never fully lived up to it but that is our north star.”
Obama, who remains perhaps the biggest star in the Democratic Party, will deliver a live address Wednesday night as well. He hopes to serve as a bridge between those reassured by Biden’s lengthy resume and more moderate record, and a younger generation of Democrats agitating for more dramatic change.
Obama confidants say that the former president’s support for Biden is unequivocal, but he does worry about enthusiasm among younger voters, particularly younger voters of color. Democrats concede that one of the reasons Trump won the presidency in 2016 is because those voters didn’t show up in the same large numbers for Clinton as they did when Obama was on the ballot.
The first two days of the convention have featured a diverse lineup, although Biden’s team has largely showcased the more moderate wing of his party — and even a half dozen Republicans such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel said on Fox News Channel on Wednesday she wasn’t concerned, adding that Powell “hasn’t been a Republican since the early 2000s.”
“This isn’t surprising,” McDaniel said. “This group of Never Trumpers has left the Republican party.”
It remains to be seen whether the unconventional convention will give Biden the momentum he’s looking for.
Preliminary estimates show that television viewership for the first night of the virtual convention was down compared with the opening of Hillary Clinton’s onsite nominating party four years ago.
An estimated 18.7 million people watched coverage between 10 and 11 p.m. on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, the Nielsen company said. Four years ago, the opening night drew just under 26 million viewers.
Biden’s campaign said an additional 10.2 million streamed the convention online Monday night.
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