Kamala Harris and Tim Walz face up to Donald Trump's resilience

In the midst of the Democratic Party convention in Chicago, which is being held from 19 to 22 August, José María Peredo, Professor of Communication and International Relations at the Universidad Europea, stopped by the microphones of Onda Madrid's ‘De cara al mundo’ programme to analyse the political situation three months before the US elections, as well as the profiles of the candidates, the electoral campaigns and the importance of foreign policy in the vote.  

At the convention, Joe Biden is expected to give the inaugural speech, followed by the Mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson. The convention will also be attended by major party figures such as former presidents Bill Clinton and Barak Obama, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  

José María Peredo, have the Democrats got it right with Kamala Harris and now with Tim Walz?

The results of donations and contributions seem to indicate so. The polls themselves, although there are certain contradictions, show a growth in voting intentions towards the Democratic ticket.  

Firstly, the unknown and the doubt about Biden has been cleared up. Secondly, a formula has been sought, the most legitimate one, Kamala Harris. And then, thirdly, a ticket, in principle a broad one, has been created to try to capture the entire spectrum of Democratic voters, which is broad, varied and difficult to bring together, but which has been achieved in some way.  

Kamala Harris, an African-American woman, more progressive, together with a middle-class Tim Walz, rural areas... The ticket seems to bring together enough elements to attract the Democratic vote.

It is a very complementary ticket. Historically, it would have to be said that the tickets, in general, have not been so complementary. Some are not complementary at all, with very similar profiles of the candidates. For example, Clinton and Gold, who were similar profiles, or like Reagan and Bush, who were almost the same, represented the same thing.  

In this case, Kamala falls within this progressive profile, but she comes from the Biden administration, which has been a moderate, moderate, liberal government. That is where she can capture that centrist vote. However, Walz's profile is, first of all, Anglo-Saxon, from the Midwest, an experienced politician who is looking for another profile, in the style of Bernie Sanders, perhaps, to identify him, that slightly left-wing voter who is committed to social issues, but who, effectively, is capable of attracting the more progressive vote, not the radicalised vote, which, let's say, is more complex, but that vote, let's say, of Bernie Sanders.  

Remember the polls. The key states, the states that tip the balance one way or the other, such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Ohio; and now it seems that Arizona and Nevada, although they have other characteristics, may be in dispute, because the rest of the states, more or less, are already identified for one or the other.  

The Democratic Party needs the vote that Donald Trump was able to win back in 2016. It must be said that in 2016 we had a latent economic situation, the crisis and the consequences for society. Now we come from a much healthier economic situation in the United States. I'm not going to get into the Trump and Kamala debate about Biden, about what the real situation is, but obviously much more buoyant. The voter of eight years ago is perhaps no longer the same voter in those areas, and perhaps the Wall effect may have some capacity to recover that vote that was lost and went towards the populism of Donald Trump.  

It is possible, and we need to look at some polls, that this Trumpism has caught on with these voters and that the change in the vote is not going to happen. I have already committed myself to a vision of agreement, more Americanist, focused on the problems of the working, labour and middle classes, and that is represented by Donald Trump, and I am not going to be fooled, it may occur in the thinking of these voters and these areas.  

Is Trump as out of step as it seems or as some media are indicating?  

Trump is unsettled, first of all, because everything was set up for a repeat of the Biden-Trump election, first of all that, secondly, he has gone through the attack, and, thirdly, he obviously has to get the campaign back on track. But the campaign has already reacted, for example, to this assessment of the crisis, this Kamala Crash with which he has identified this fall in the stock market, which happens in many months of August; I am not a stock market specialist by any means, but mere observation of the different years shows that the months of August are very sensitive to movements in the stock market and generally to some falls, which the former president has immediately identified as the Kamala Crash.

That is to say, Trump has the capacity to redirect the campaign, to react, to redo the campaign again, and instead of Biden being the target, it is Kamala. Yes, he is unsettled, above all, by himself. Trump is aware that what the Republican Party wants and needs is not the Trump of 2016, but a much more inclusive president with a longer vision.  

Yes, because the stock markets rallied the next day, it had been a misinterpretation of a series of funds in Japan, and then fake news about a possible recession in the US, but immediately after that it moved on to personal issues. We've seen Donald Trump, whether she was black, whether she's a progressive, whether Walz is a radical leftist, the attacks by Vance, the vice-presidential candidate by the Republicans with Trump, the personal attacks, here we complain that things are unfortunately the way they are, in the United States it's being very bitter.  

In the campaign with Hillary Clinton, he showed no mercy with the candidate, he took everything necessary out of Hillary Clinton's public and private life, and Kamala Harris has to be prepared for that, because Trump is a master at that. I wish he was a person who campaigned like Barack Obama, or like many other political leaders. You can criticise, and you can mock, and you can take advantage of any situation, but it is not in the personal and identity issue.  

The question of identity, in this case, moreover, is particularly sensitive and political; it is not a question of making a gesture about ethnic origin, in the style, for example, of Obama, who said that he is not even American, that here the question is to identify, that is, to win the vote of these minorities, the identities that have been reinforced in the United States in many places, some were already there, but others were not and have appeared, the nativist or Americanist identity has been reinforced, and so the issue of identity is naturally present, it gives votes and so on, in addition to immigration, of course.  

To tie in with what is happening in the world, what influence can foreign policy have? Here perhaps Joe Biden can lend a hand to Kamala Harris, making decisions that, if they go well, he can score a point, if they go badly, Kamala can distance herself because it was Biden who made them. I am thinking, for example, of Venezuela, what is happening with this electoral fraud that everyone knows about, but the days go by and the Chavistas are still there? Or Israel, where the United States has managed to get the Israeli government to accept mediation with Egypt, Qatar and Hamas to try to negotiate the release of the kingdoms.  

Foreign policy is more present than at other times, because there are two open conflicts, two open wars.  

And Ukraine, of course, of course.  

Ukraine is going to be there and Hamas is going to be there. Walz himself has already made some reference to this issue in his candidacy. And Venezuela, of course, will be there. All the rivals, all the interests that are in some way opposed to the United States, I don't want to use the word enemy because it's not there. In other words, the rivalries he may have with the United States, and naturally the extremist, radicalised groups, enemies of the United States, which represents democracy and so on, are not going to help him at all, not just Kamala Harris, but also President Biden; they are, of course, trying to destabilise democracy.  

And to destabilise democracy is to maintain an open conflict in the election campaign that makes it look like the United States is involved in some way, that it is mismanaging the situation, and to provoke all these kinds of uncertainties.  

For the moment, what the Biden administration has done is to increase its naval deployment in the Middle East. We are all awaiting Iran's response, which has been announced as threatening, apocalyptic against Israel. There they will try to do something coordinated with their proxies, with Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and so on. And there the United States shows the determination to intervene and prevent it.  

That will probably happen or not depending on their capacity, but they will probably try, of course. These events depend on how they play out. That can have a campaign effect, in the sense of saying that President Biden's action and performance has been good; therefore, Harris in a way is that continuity, or, on the other hand, the action should have been better, should have been different, and then Trump is the one who has to replace him. Clearly, foreign policy is going to take sides in this election campaign.