Harris and Walz enjoyed a successful convention, but it didn't achieve a critical goal

We will not really have a clear sense of the direction the 2024 presidential campaign is heading until the polls come in after the Sept. 10 Harris-Trump debate.

Elections are ultimately a referendum on the incumbent. We will see, in the Sept. 10 debate between the vice president and the former president, whether Harris is able to escape stigmatization over the perceived failures of the now fading current president. The major question facing Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans now is whether they can successfully recalibrate the campaign to be as effective in their critiques of Vice President Harris as they were of the current president. Douglas E. Schoen has more than 40 years of experience as a pollster and political consultant. He served as an adviser to President Bill Clinton and to the presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg. Schoen is founder and partner of Schoen Cooperman Research.

The Democratic convention has been characterized this week as one of great vibes and the politics of joy and Harris herself was able to rise to the occasion Thursday night. She gave voters, of all parties and ideologies, a sense that she stood with them and for them, in contrast to an aging, out-of-touch Donald Trump who, in her telling, stood specifically and principally with billionaires.