Kamala Harris' presidential campaign has hit the ground running. Shortly after US President Joe Biden had announced via social media that he was withdrawing from the presidential race, he shared a second post endorsing Harris as the Democratic candidate for president. Former US President Bill Clinton  and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Speaker of the House and grande dame of the Democratic Party Nancy Pelosi, as well as many Democrat Congress members and governors, followed suit.

Harris' campaign also set a new record for a presidential campaign's fundraising, with $81 million in donations coming in during the first 24 hours of Harris' candidacy. That sum was raised across the campaign, Democratic National Committee and joint fundraising committees. Another important factor for her campaign going forward: more than 888,000 grassroots donors contributed in those 24 hours, and 60% of them were first-time donors in the 2024 election cycle. That means they hadn't donated to Biden's campaign, but took out their wallets for Harris. And as vice president, Harris also has access to all the funds that were raised for Biden. The current president's nearly $96 million campaign fund was transferred to Harris on Sunday. 

Harris herself said in a statement that she would do everything in her power "to unite the Democratic Party— and unite our nation— to defeat Donald Trump…"

Harris has to win Democratic nomination before general election

Uniting the party is an important first step because Harris is not yet the official nominee. For that, she has to win a majority of delegates' votes at the Democratic National Convention, which is taking place from August 19 to 22 in the midwestern city of Chicago.

"Right now she needs to [run] a double campaign," Stormy-Annika Mildner, the executive director of the Aspen Institute Germany, a transatlantic think tank based in in Berlin, told DW. Harris has to "unite the Democrats so that they stay behind her, and with an eye on the November elections also speak to the [American] people and win them over for her campaign."

Harris is the only candidate who would be allowed to use the millions of dollars in donations already collected by the Biden campaign, since she was part of the ticket that the donations came in for. Furthermore, as vice president, she is more well-known across the country than certain others who have been mentioned as potential candidates.

But there are also factors that don't speak in her favor.

"One of the big weaknesses is that her popularity ratings are really not much better than Biden's," Mildner said.

Another is that she was  tasked with tackling the border crisis and stemming mass immigration from Central- and Latin America and has been criticized by opponents for not being up to the job.

"This is something where people would say she failed. I think that's a little unfair, because the situation is so difficult at the border," Mildner said. "But this is something which the Trump campaign… will use as a strong case against her."

Could Harris beat Trump?

Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for president, has to pivot now from a campaign largely focused on and against Biden to one focused on a new nominee. If it turns out to be Harris, what are her chances of winning the election on November 5?

"As we see in some of the early surveys that pit her directly against Donald Trump, she at least matches him or beats him by two to three percentage points," Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, a transatlantic expert with the German Bertelsmann Foundation, told DW. "There's not much to go on quite yet, but at least those surveys seem stable [in showing] that she can go head-to-head with Donald Trump. And she has enormous potential to be doing more over the next 107 days."

Democrats hope that the new candidate will be able to spark some new energy in the campaign. Her advocates think that Harris can do this. The idea is that she can get people excited who might not have gone to the polls with Biden as candidate, said Mildner: young people, women, and people of color.

One factor in particular could help Harris with female voters: Since the majority-conservative Supreme Court revoked the constitutional right to abortion, Harris has spoken out repeatedly against the verdict. She "was a leading voice in defending a woman's right to choose," Clüver Ashbrook said. "And she has been extremely vocal and successful on that issue on the campaign trail."

Where does Harris stand on NATO, Ukraine, Israel?

In the field of foreign policy, Harris hasn't had much exposure yet, Clüver Ashbrook said. However, the vice president made it very clear at the Munich Security Conference in 2024 and 2023 that she highly values the US' membership in NATO, something that Trump does not. And Harris doesn't just want to continue cooperating with European allies.

"She [also] very clearly sees the value in US alliances in the Indo-Pacific," Clüver Ashbrook said. "And of course the fact that she has Indian heritage will be welcomed by certain parts of the Indo-Pacific alliance."

Looking at the ongoing war in Ukraine Harris believes, like Biden, that Kyiv needs to be supported. Of course, as president she would have to work with Congress to get financial and military aid packages passed, but she would be likely to push for this aid just like Biden has, because "she views Russia as a big threat," Mildner said.

The question of what the US stance would be on the conflict in Gaza under a potential President Harris is particularly interesting because Biden's staunch support of Israel had been a point of criticism among young voters and Arab-Americans in particular.

"I think she has been a little bit more sympathetic toward Palestinians and came out a little stronger criticizing the humanitarian catastrophe in Palestine," Mildner said. "So I could see that maybe the tone is going to change a little bit. But the support for Israel ― that is not going to change."

Edited by: Anne Thomas

Editor's note: This article was originally published on July 22, 2024, and was updated on July 23, 2024, with current information on endorsements of Harris and funds raised by her campaign.