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With former President Barack Obama on hand to fire up his hometown crowd in Chicago last night, the Kamala Harris “bump” continues to swell, as enthusiastic delegates at the Democratic National Convention are whipped into a frenzy in anticipation of hearing Harris speak Thursday night. Logic, however, dictates that what goes up must eventually come down, and Harris’ detractors are waiting for the joy and poll numbers generated by the bump to finally level off. ABC News contributor Sarah Isgur appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program and probed the issue: can the Harris bump sustain itself past Labor Day?
“It’s certainly working for Democrats,” Isgur told Berman and Larry Mendte, sitting in for Riedel. “We’ve seen enthusiasm through the roof, especially when you compare it to where it was heading into July, but, I think there are questions. Normally, a candidate gets a bump heading out of the convention, but will Harris get that bump, or was basically all of July her bump, and there’s not much more bump left to have? Is this actually working for independent persuadable voters or is it just building enthusiasm around already hardcore voters who were despondent about Biden- not because they didn’t like Biden, but because they thought they were going to lose with Biden. So, there’s still a lot more we don’t know, and we’ll see heading into Labor Day what this convention actually did.”
There is one possible pin that could pop or partially deflate the Harris bubble before Labor Day, but Isgur says critics shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for that to happen. “She has said that she’s going to do a sit-down interview by the end of this month, if she wanted to get past the convention. Of course, for her campaign, there’s no reason to take on that kind of risk unless she is sort of forced to by external actors. The Trump campaign has obviously tried. They’ve given multiple press conferences now to try to goad her into it, but there hasn’t seemed to be a ton of pressure from reporters. You hear every reporter say she needs to do this, this is important, she needs to take questions about her record, but there’s no drumbeat really forcing it, either.”