100 days remain in the 2024 presidential race.

For those who can remember this far back, the first (and perhaps only?) presidential debate this cycle took place just one month ago yesterday.

In the time since then, we've had a historic debate fallout, an intra-party meltdown, a presidential assassination attempt, a resignation from the Secret Service director, the Republican National Convention, a Republican vice presidential pick, and a race withdrawal from the sitting president of the United States following radical pressure he was facing from within his own party.

And now we have had a new coronation for the Democratic nomination, and the recipient: Kamala Harris. Shortly following Biden’s departure, he endorsed the vice president, and the rest of the party fell in line thereafter.

Now, we have a new race. Truly, this is a totally new election. The first election of this year ended on June 27th, 2024; we just didn’t know it yet. Unfortunately, if you’re a Republican, that win does not matter unless you win the new election now at hand.

Having Biden’s cognitive decline exposed out in the open for all to see certainly helps Republicans, especially considering the obvious implications that his staff (including the vice president) had to know of his cognitive state. The debate was not truly just “one bad night,” otherwise he would not have been forced out, but rather, it was one night in a series of bad days and nights that occurred ever since Biden took office. In a way, that night was very much a microcosm of his term in office.

But with Biden pushed aside, attention now turns to his deputy: Kamala Harris, former attorney general and one-term senator from the state of California. And also, the sitting vice president of the United States.

The challenge for the vice president over these next 100 days will be multiple. She must distance herself from her past rhetoric on energy production, immigration, economic outcomes, criminalization, dietary restrictions, and more. She must also define her record as vice president, which may be a dubious task as so far the only defining the campaign has done is telling voters what she has not done. Harris, and her friends in the media, spent time this past week denying her critical role in the Biden administration’s immigration policy. Pairing this involvement with her prior political statements on immigration may prove to be a fruitful line of attack for the former president.

Harris must also dodge culpability in controversies such as the invasion of Ukraine, for which she was tasked with heading to Europe to dissuade a Russian invasion. She must also avoid any blame for her full-throated support of the Biden administration’s pullout from Afghanistan and her self-admitted role in the travesty.

Her third task must be to undo the damage of her boss’ campaign. When Biden dropped out, he was close to 5-6 six points underwater against the former president. Due to renewed Democratic enthusiasm, Harris has cut into that lead thus far, narrowing it to around two percent. Still, that is not good enough. A Trump +2 national popular vote still translates to a win for him over 90% of the time in the electoral college. For Harris to be competitive in the electoral college, she will not just need to erase Trump’s lead but build one of her own.

And perhaps, she may be doing that. Polls over this past week were remarkably inconsistent for an election cycle that has been defined by remarkably stable and consistent polling. Most polls showed Trump with a slight edge, but several polls, such as an Ipsos poll, showed Harris with as great as a 2% lead in the national popular vote.

In such a case, the electoral college would then be a toss up. Remember, this is roughly the margin that Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote in 2016…, and we all remember how that turned out. That is not to say a Trump win would be a sure thing in such an event, quite the contrary. It would be a remarkably narrow election, likely coming down to slender margins in a familiar set of states: Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

With that said, Harris’ rebound could also be a mirage, fueled by the supposed “honeymoon effect.” Americans are, afterall, just now getting to know the vice president and may not know her for her faults just yet. Still, this is not really the first time the American public is meeting the vice president. In her previous introductions, her once-promising campaign bombed out of the 2020 presidential campaign even before voting began in the primaries. Then Americans got to know her again as Biden’s vice presidential nominee, from which few were left feeling enthused. Then, as vice president, Harris was trotted out time and time again, but her propensity to speak nonsensically and her ties to repeated policy failures caused her to largely be pushed out of public view. Her approval among the public is evidenced by routinely abysmal approval and favorability ratings that, up until recently, were below even that of President Biden, who has now dropped the race.

The going theory is that Kamala Harris may decline in the polls once she gets more time in the spotlight. People were already sick of Trump and Biden, so some may just be tentatively gravitating towards the shiny new candidate. But, these voters may very well be repelled in the coming weeks as they come to find out more about her. That said, Republicans should not rest on this line of thinking, for it is their job to muddy her up, or rather, show the American public who she truly is.

Speaking of that, Trump, on the other hand, needs to define Kamala Harris by her record, not by allegations of impropriety with one Willie Brown that, mind you, date all the way back to the 90s. (Not exactly topical or relevant to voters). Rather, he and his campaign need to hammer her on things the American public will not like, such as her rating by GovTrack as the most liberal United States senator ‒ surpassing even one Bernard Sanders. The Trump campaign needs to drive home the message that Ms. Harris is anything but a moderate and is rather a radical leftist. Tying Harris to her record of failure in the current administration and what further damage an uber liberal Harris administration would cause is the ultimate task of the Trump candidacy. And with a shortened time table to make it happen, the Trump campaign must work overtime to ensure that it does.

Furthermore, Trump and his fellow Republicans must emphasize the vice president’s complicity in the Biden cover up. Working with the man even once or twice a week would have been enough for someone to recognize that the had diminished past the point of being fit for office. We have mechanisms to address that urgent national security vulnerability for a reason after all ‒ the 25th Amendment. As to why it was not invoked is something that the vice president must be made to answer for, as well as President Biden’s entire cabinet. Further still, why have they not ‒ now that we all know his condition ‒ heeded the calls to remove him from office?

The campaign also needs to make sure Mr. Trump minds his words. Too often in his political career has he been his own worst enemy. His freewheeling candor often gets (deliberately) misinterpreted by liberal-minded actors in media to harm his political support. This will become increasingly important as the election day draws near. (Note: Voting begins in Pennsylvania in mid-September).

In a race with as many twists and turns, it can hardly be predicted what comes next, but there are a few items on the horizon: a Democratic vice presidential pick, the DNC, and the tentative September 10th debate. Let’s also not forget that Trump still has his New York sentencing hearing on September 18th. The 2024 presidential election race certainly is shaping up to be a barn burner.