Kamala Harris Scores TIME Magazine Cover: ‘The Swiftest Vibe Shift in Modern Political History’

 (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

The new nature of the 2024 race has merited Vice President Kamala Harris the Time Magazine cover treatment with a story by Charlotte Alter.

“The Reintroduction of Kamala Harris” was published on Monday and led with a description of the scene last week in Philadelphia when Harris introduced her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D):

The soundtrack suggested a Beyoncé concert. The light-up bracelets evoked the Eras Tour. And the exuberant crowd—more than 14,000 strong, lining up in the rain—resembled the early days of Barack Obama. Inside a Philadelphia arena on Aug. 6, Vice President Kamala Harris was greeted with a kind of reception a Democratic presidential candidate hasn’t gotten in years. Fans packed into overflow spaces, waving homemade signs made of glitter and glue as drumlines roared. When Harris introduced her new running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the cheering lasted more than a minute.

Here’s the cover:

Time Magazine

Alter’s story focused on “the swiftest vibe shift in modern political history.” She described the attitude of Democrats with Harris at the top of the ticket thusly: “Democrats resigned to a ‘grim death march’ toward certain defeat, as one national organizer put it, felt their gloom replaced by a jolt of hope.”

Alter also asked: “Where has this Kamala Harris been all along?” Citing Harris’s failed 2020 presidential campaign and her subdued role as Biden’s No. 2, Alter wrote that her “own party underestimated her”:

Suddenly, she seems matched to the moment: a former prosecutor running against a convicted felon, a defender of abortion rights running against the man who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, a next-generation Democrat running against a 78-year-old Republican.

The story quoted several notable Democratic figures to answer that questions, including Bakari Sellers, who worked on Harris’s failed 2020 campaign: “We did a disservice to her in 2020 … We Bubble-Wrapped her.”

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) also told Time: “She has gone from being a Padawan to a Jedi Master.”

Read the full story at Time.