Democrats gathered in Chicago, Illinois on Monday to kick off the first day of the Democratic National Convention with the ostensible theme “For the People.” Despite the theme, the stage was mostly dominated by political and cultural elites when compared to the Republican National Convention last month in Milwaukee. Rather, it was three other themes that set the tone for the week ahead.
1. Betting Big on Gender Politics
With Democrats set to nominate the first female person of color as a major party’s presidential nominee, the convention to put the spotlight on female speakers. First Lady Jill Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rep. Lauren Underwood of Illinois, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass were among the female politicians who addressed the crowd gathered in Chicago Monday night.
The Democrats’ decision to put its female leaders front and center on night one suggests Democrats are set to lean in on the widening gender gap in American politics that is particularly pronounced amongst young voters. A February Gallup poll found that 40% of women aged 18-29 identify as liberal, while only 25% of young men do.
While political attitudes are not as segmented between the genders in older generations, exit polling from previous presidential elections show how men and women are increasingly sorting themselves into red and blue. In 2008, the gender gap was seven points; by 2020 it was 12 points.
With Kamala Harris atop the Democratic ticket, the gap is poised to grow even wider. “It is now close to, or certainly in the ballpark of, the biggest gender gap we’ve ever seen,” Paul Maslin, a pollster at FM3, told Politico. A recent CBS News/YouGov poll showed women favored Harris by 12 points, while men favored Trump by nine.
All this helps explain why the Harris campaign has opted for an aesthetic (including its co-option of pop star Charli XCX’s “brat” branding) and communications strategy geared towards young women online. Democrats seem to believe turning out these young, female voters come November, though messaging on abortion and other social issues, is the key to victory.
2. Create Chaos on the Right
Democrats seem poised to use the DNC’s domination of the primetime airwaves this week to bait the right into fighting itself. If night one is any indication, Democrats’ strategy to break conservative ranks will be through continued attacks against The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 to pit the think tank against the Trump campaign.
With a comically large copy of the Project 2025 reader, “Mandate for Leadership,” in hand, Michigan Senate Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow took the stage for a primetime speaking slot on night one.
“This is the Republican blueprint for a second Trump term,” McMorrow proclaimed on the DNC stage despite both the Trump campaign and Heritage Foundation’s insistence that the campaign and Project 2025 are independent of one another. McMorrow went a step further, claiming that Project 2025 plans “to turn Donald Trump into a dictator” by “reissu[ing] Trump’s Schedule F Executive Order to permit discharge of nonperforming employees” and “ending law enforcement activities of independent agencies.”
“That is not how it works in America,” McMorrow later screamed as screens behind her read “Choose Democracy,” seemingly unaware that the proposals reinstitute elected checks on unelected bureaucrats.
The doomsday scenario? “Donald Trump would be able to weaponize the Department of Justice to go after his political opponents,” McMorrow said.
Pot, meet kettle.
Before leaving the stage, McMorrow promised that Democrats would be back tomorrow with another speech on proposals in Project 2025, even though the Harris campaign has previously admitted to misleading voters about Project 2025’s objectives and its relationship to the Trump campaign.
3. Out With the Old, In With the new
Monday night also featured ghosts of presidential elections past.
In what felt like a swan song address, former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton took the stage Monday night to proclaim that the glass ceiling is shattering for real this time.
“Tonight, so close to breaking through once and for all, I want to tell you what I see through all those cracks and why it matters for each and every one of us. What do I see? I see freedom,” Clinton told the audience. “On the other side of that glass ceiling is Kamala Harris raising her hand and taking the oath of office as our forty-seventh president of the United States.”
The glass ceiling wasn’t the only Clinton reprise in her DNC speech. Clinton went for the deep cut with the revival of her “it takes a village” mantra, the title of her 1996 book. “We have to fight for Kamala as she will fight for us. Because you know what, it still takes a village to raise a family, heal a country and win a campaign,” Clinton said. The late Bob Dole rolls in his grave.
“The future is here. It’s in our grasp,” Clinton said to conclude her remarks. The bitter pill for Clinton to swallow is if that future comes, she likely won’t play a major part in it. “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten played as she exited stage left.
The Bidens won’t be playing a large role in that future either, at least if the party has its way.
First Lady Jill Biden preceded her husband, still the incumbent president, late Monday night. The first lady breezed past lingering questions that remain about the nature of her husband’s decision to not run for reelection. “When I saw him dig deep into his soul and decide to no longer seek reelection and endorse Kamala Harris,” Jill Biden said, was a moment she “f[e]ll in love with him all over again.”
“Joe knows that our nation’s strength doesn’t come from intimidation or cruelty. It comes from the small acts of kindness that heal deep wounds, from service to the communities that make us who we are, from love of a country that shines with promise and renewal,” the first lady claimed. But “Kamala Harris knows that too.”
Harris, and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are “inspiring a new generation,” Jill Biden concluded.
Speaking for the old generation, President Joe Biden took the stage at almost 10:30 p.m. Chicago time. Biden was teary-eyed as he walked on stage, and remained visibly choked up as he approached the microphone and the crowd chanted “we love Joe!” and “thank you, Joe!”
In the midst of making official the unceremonious passing of the torch to his vice president, Biden was defiant about his record as president. Biden proclaimed his administration took on Big Pharma, beat back inflation with the Inflation Reduction Act, the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and America’s continued involvement in the war in Ukraine.
Not before long, Biden was scraping the bottom of the barrel. He boasted that his administration has invested in, and built, charging stations from electric vehicles—even though only 7 chargers have been built. The president insisted that now there are fewer border crossings than when Donald Trump left office, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows that in January of 2021 there were 78,414 migrant encounters on the southern border while there were nearly 105,000 in July. Biden also claimed that “when Trump left office, Europe and NATO was in tatters,” despite the largest land war in Europe breaking out under Biden’s watch. Nevertheless, Biden promised it was “not a joke!”
The president had his trademarked stumbles in a stemwinder carried on for nearly an hour, but nothing like the troubles that beset him in the presidential debate that led to his political demise in June.
Nearly an hour in, Biden finally decided to hand Harris the baton as promised. The president said he knew Harris would make a good president “because like many of our best presidents, she was also a vice president.”
“That’s a joke,” Biden added.
