Vox Sentences - When Kamala Harris's speech came alive

With last night’s finale of the Democratic National Convention, we are now officially in the home stretch of the 2024 campaign. It’s the fourth presidential election I’ve covered, and helping audiences understand the story that, every four years, inevitably becomes the biggest one in the world is exhilarating, motivating, and a huge privilege. I love getting to do this.

It’s also really exhausting, never more so than the day after the conventions wrap up. If you’re covering them on the ground, like our Today, Explained podcast team was in Chicago, there’s no break between reporting you can only do with so many important voices in one place, sourcing up for the weeks ahead, and actually putting together the show. Other Vox journalists were watching and analyzing the marquee primetime events from afar — and our work to explain what mattered from them really cranks up after they’re done. 

By the time you’re reading this, the Vox editors, reporters, and producers who covered the convention (which is most of them) are all seriously bleary-eyed and ready to wrap this up and get ready for the next phase of our coverage. But it helps to have a jug of iced coffee by my side, and so much great coverage on our site this week that I won’t be able to stuff it all into one newsletter. Here’s some of it. 

—Natalie Jennings, managing editor

The moment Kamala Harris’s DNC speech came alive

On the biggest of stages Thursday night, Harris pulled off something that has elided her current boss and pretty much everyone else in the past 10 months: deftly and clearly laying out a position on Israel and Palestine and the conflict in Gaza. Her speech “not only recognized the strongest points in both the Israeli and Palestinian narratives of the current conflict, it took them seriously,” wrote Zack Beauchamp. Her careful handling of the issue “did wonders for her commander-in-chief credibility.” 

🎧 Today, Explained via Chicago

Vox’s daily news podcast doesn’t usually focus on one topic for a full week, but the team covered the DNC from so many fascinating angles this week that I suggest you put all these into your ears over the weekend. They revisited the 1968 convention in Chicago, looked into the migrant crisis playing out in the host city and why its residents are so mad about it, and spoke to Black women backing Harris about what they want from her.

Michelle Obama articulated something Democrats have been afraid to say

The former first lady delivered a barn burner of a speech on Tuesday, starting by nailing the vibe shift the party has seen over the past month. “Few Democrats have gone so far as to openly admit how bad the vibes had gotten” under President Biden, wrote Andrew Prokop. And in pointing out that “hope is making a comeback,” Obama both did admit that, and also bestowed upon Harris a change-candidate status that lifted her husband’s presidential campaign. 

The major policy transformation that flew the radar at the DNC 

Four years ago, DNC watchers saw a series of personal stories about how Trump-era policies had scrambled immigrants’ lives and their families’ lives. This year, not so much, writes Christian Paz. Instead, the party “embraced tougher policies for asylum seekers, praised President Biden’s attempts to negotiate a bipartisan border security bill, and conceded the changed reality of immigration politics since the pandemic’s dawn.” 

📹 Kamala Harris, explained in seven moments 

The Vox Video team gave us this fascinating, deep understanding of Harris’s career, from her time as a self-described “smart on crime” prosecutor to her difficult first few years as vice president to the whirlwind last month leading up to the nomination.

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