7 things to watch as Kamala Harris upends race against Trump with 100 days to go

The electrifying launch of Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign sets up a toss-up race with former President Donald Trump as both sides size up new electoral advantages — and worries — in a dramatically scrambled White House contest.

With exactly 100 days before Election Day, Harris couldn’t have scripted a better start to her campaign after President Biden pulled the plug on his flailing reelection fight and endorsed her as his successor last Sunday.

But Trump was leading the race after surviving an assassination attempt and a successful Republican National Convention — and it might still be his race to lose.

Here’s a look at seven things that happened in the dizzying past week, and what they mean for the presidential campaign:

Kamala campaign kicks off big bang

Harris hit the ground running like few candidates for any office have ever done before.

She lined up support from key Democratic lawmakers in hours. Wrapped up the delegates needed to clinch the nomination in a day and a half. Got Barack and Michelle Obama to dial in their support by the end of the week.

Heck, she even got Beyonce to let her use “Freedom” as her new theme song.

Most of all, Harris instantly unleashed a wave of pent-up Democratic enthusiasm that had been suppressed by Biden’s lackluster campaign and the divisiveness over the president’s shaky debate performance.

Suddenly, it’s cool to be a Democrat again.

The polls quickly reflected a changed race with Trump falling into a virtual dead heat with Harris after he had led Biden for months.

“The polls are re-setting along with the campaign as a whole,” said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist.

If past is prologue, Harris should expect more gains in support leading up to the Democratic National Convention in late August, which will be retooled as a celebratory coming out party for her.

That would set up a 10-week sprint to the White House where it’s anyone’s guess who would be the favorite.

A Democratic ‘money bomb’ blew up

Biden’s abrupt move lit the fuse on the biggest eruption of political fundraising in American presidential campaign history.

Harris set an all-time record by raking in more than $100 million in small-dollar donations. The cash came from more than 1 million individuals, another record, most of them first-time donors.

She also unlocked a nine-figure windfall from Democratic megadonors, who had soured on Biden and were holding back on writing big checks.

The gusher of cash puts Harris back in the driver’s seat when it comes to funding what will be an expensive effort to turn out Democratic voters who had been unenthusiastic about fighting for four more years of Biden.

Trump had recently overtaken Democrats with a flood of donations. His army of MAGA loyalists gave bigly in a wave of sympathy after he survived an assassination attempt while Silicon Valley moguls got behind the candidate who was looking like a sure-fire winner.

Short list for a new No. 2 takes shape

Moving up to the top slot on the Democratic ticket gives Harris the chance to use her own veepstakes to pitch her ticket.

The early favorites are white men from swing states or the Midwest, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Sen. Mark Kelly, a former astronaut from Arizona.

Any of them could hypothetically do for Harris what Biden did for Obama 16 years ago: reassure moderate voters especially in the Midwest who may not be 100% ready to take the plunge by putting the nation’s first Black woman in the White House.

Other choices would amount to rolling the dice on a changing America like Pete Buttigieg, who would be the first gay veep, or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to create the first all-female presidential ticket.

“We’ve gone from deep depression to real excitement and the veepstakes will be a big part of that,” said Tom Watson, a Democratic strategist.

The Harris veepstakes could give Democrats an unexpected boost by comparison to Trump’s so far underwhelming pick of JD Vance as his running mate.

Every story about her choice for veep is going to include a riff on Vance’s lightweight political image and cringeworthy statements about everything from Diet Mountain Dew (he likes it) to women who don’t have kids (not a fan).

Hello, North Carolina! (and Georgia and Arizona)

It’s no coincidence that Harris has already made several trips to North Carolina. Or that she’s heading to Atlanta on Tuesday.

One of the biggest problems President Biden was facing in recent months was the big lead Trump had forged in the Sun Belt swing states of Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

With her potentially greater appeal to younger voters and especially Blacks and Latinos, Harris may be able to reshuffle the map and put the Sun Belt back in play.

That gives her more room for error if she slips elsewhere, like in Wisconsin or Michigan.

Trump best argument is now flipped

The former president had a perfect message to beat Biden: He’s too old, everything got more expensive on his watch and the southern border is a mess.

Trump rode widespread concerns about Biden’s age and fitness to a dominant position in the race, especially after the president’s shockingly poor performance in their recent debate.

The great Democratic switch took away Trump’s best argument in a flash.

He went from landing daily punches against Biden’s obvious infirmities to fielding punches about his own rambling speeches about Hannibal Lecter and electrocuting sharks.

Trump is now running to become the oldest president in U.S. history, including Biden himself. The contrast with a much younger and more dynamic Harris could spell trouble for Trump, especially in a face-to-face debate.

GOP strategist Doug Heye said Republicans should remind voters about inflation and immigration.

“Kamala takes away Biden’s No. 1 liability: age,” Heye told the News. “The massive unpopularity of the Biden/Harris administration remains.”

GOP floats risky ‘DEI’ slur

Trump’s campaign was inexplicably left flatfooted by Biden’s decision to step down and hand the baton to Harris.

The MAGA leader spent the first couple of days continuing to attack Biden, even though any political consultant could have told him to save his breath for his new opponent.

Republicans spent the week test driving a new attack on Harris as the “DEI candidate,” suggesting that Harris only got to where she is with a boost from diversity, equity and inclusion.

The goal is obvious: to rally conservative white voters and to stoke fears that a Black woman president could turbocharge their declining status in American politics and culture.

But it’s also a risky strategy because it may anger people of color, suburban women and college-educated whites who may otherwise have been open to voting for Trump or simply staying home.

Did Trump’s path to 270 just get … smoother?

Trump’s path to victory in the electoral college always included flipping the Sun Belt and taking at least one or more of the so-called blue wall states.

He’s still ahead in Arizona and Nevada. With Harris on the ballot, winning in Wisconsin or Michigan may have just gotten easier for him.

Those once-blue Rust Belt states are home to legions of older white working-class voters. Some of them disproportionately stuck with “Scranton Joe” Biden despite, or maybe because, of his age.

Trump might just be able to take advantage of Harris’s liberal California profile to run up the score with those voters and put the entire blue wall in the GOP column.

“Harris doesn’t make holding the blue wall states more likely, in fact she makes it less likely,” said GOP strategist Matt Mackowiak. “It will likely be close as we are a divided country, but Trump remains the favorite.”