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Joe Biden has embarked on an apology tour in the wake of his debate disaster, but with the Democrats remaining in crisis, much focus has turned to Kamala Harris, the vice-president, who some are talking about as a potential Biden replacement should he step aside.
Harris has been thrust in front of cameras around the country in recent days, offering support to her 81-year-old colleague – but despite Biden insisting that he will stay in the race, speculation continues about whether Harris could be an alternative.
We’ll have a look at that, but first here’s what else has been going on in the election.
Here’s what you need to know
1. Biden takes to the airwaves
The embattled president has conducted a series of interviews as he seeks to move on from that damaging debate. Biden appeared on ABC for a live interview on Friday, phoned in to MSNBC on Monday and spoke to local radio stations over the weekend. He has been blaming his halting debate performance on both a cold and on jetlag (despite being back in Washington for 12 days before the debate), but his media appearances since then have not been flawless, either – nor did it help that his ABC interviewer subsequently told some guy in the street that Biden shouldn’t serve for four more years.
2. Republicans soften language on abortion
For the first time in 40 years, the Republican National Committee’s official platform will not propose a national abortion ban, in response to Trump wanting his campaign to steer clear of talking about abortion. While the platform does not suggest a complete ban on abortion, Republicans have celebrated the fact that 14 states have adopted near-total abortion bans since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022 – a decision Trump takes credit for. About 63% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and just 36% say it should be illegal in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center, putting the Republican party broadly at odds with public opinion.
3. Biden tells Nato: ‘Russia will not prevail’
Biden has suggested a key test of his viability for another presidential run should be the Nato summit in Washington, which he hosts this week and opened with a speech on Tuesday. In it, the president pledged new resources to Ukraine and condemned a missile strike against a paediatric cancer hospital as a “horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality”. Biden said Nato would provide Ukraine with new air defense systems after the Russian attack. “Russia will not prevail,” Biden said. “Ukraine will prevail.”
As Biden flaps, Harris takes flight
As Biden has struggled to lift his campaign in recent days, Kamala (pronounced “comma-la”) Harris has soared. With questions coming thick and fast about Biden’s ability to do his job, the campaign has dispatched Harris to rallies and fundraising events in Nevada, Louisiana, California and Utah as it seeks to shore up support.
Harris, who ran against Biden for the Democratic nomination four years ago – she dropped out before the first primary, amid reports of a chaotically run campaign – has recently been placed under more scrutiny than ever before, and, in a bit of a surprise, new polling suggests the vice-president might well do better than Biden against Trump.
Last week a poll by SSRS and CNN, conducted after the debate, found Harris trailing Trump by just two points nationally, within the margin of error. (Biden was losing by six points.) In a different survey on Wednesday, Harris outperformed Biden among young voters – a key bloc for the Democrats. It’s too soon to say whether her upward trend will continue, however, and in a recent Emerson poll Harris was down six points to Trump, while Biden only trailed Trump by three.
Among Democrats, for now at least, she appears to be the most popular choice to replace Biden. The former California attorney general, elected as a senator in 2017, has had a pretty quiet first term as vice-president. But even before the Biden debate debacle, Harris had begun to be a more visible face of the campaign, particularly reaching out to women and voters of colour.
Harris seems happy enough to be stepping into the limelight. At a Harris event in New Orleans on Saturday, “gone was the Kamala Harris of the drab brown, chair-matching suit and the halting, technical commentary about American policy needs”, wrote Janell Ross for the Guardian.
“Instead, on Saturday, Harris – dressed in a bright teal suit and tailed by a press contingent which had expanded to more than four times its previous size – spoke to a standing-room-only crowd in a room equipped to seat more than 500 people.”
There are some problems with her being anointed as the Democratic saviour. Harris has approval numbers nearly as low as Biden’s. And her rise has brought greater attention from Republicans, including Trump – who has begun to attack Harris on his ailing Truth Social website, giving her the less-than-punchy nickname “Laffin’ Kamala Harris”.
Trump usually reserves nicknames and attacks (he also branded Harris “pathetic” and “so fucking bad” in comments made from a golf cart last week) for people who threaten him, so it could be a sign he sees Harris, who is 19 years younger, as a legitimate threat.
But of course, Harris’s future rests on whether Biden does decide to step aside – and in his ABC interview, Biden said that “if the Lord almighty comes down” and tells him to pull out of the race, “I might do that.”
Some in the Democratic party are now musing that rather than a) Biden staying in or b) Biden stepping down and anointing Harris, the party should instead go for a third option: a “blitz primary”, in which a small group of prominent Democrats run against each other and a new candidate is chosen. But if Democrats do decide to sidestep their history-making vice-president – the first woman, as well as the first woman of African American and south Asian descent, to serve as vice-president – that might not look particularly great either.
Worst week: the American voter
Donald Trump is Donald Trump. Joe Biden is Joe Biden. And Robert F Kennedy Jr has brushed off sexual assault allegations by saying: “I am who I am.” It leaves the American public with distinctly underwhelming choices in November: a convicted felon, a visibly diminished incumbent and a fantasist who has spent the past week denying that he once ate a dog. USA! USA!
Out and about: Philadelphia
Times are certainly tough for the president right now. But in the Mount Airy Church of God in Christ on Sunday morning, you could be forgiven for not noticing. Biden was greeted by rapturous applause, and departed to chants of “four more years”.
Outside church, a handful of signs highlighted the division stretching the Democratic coalition. “Thank U Joe but time to go,” read one. Another urged Biden to “pass the torch”.
But inside, before an overwhelmingly supportive audience, he did not touch on the growing calls for him to stand aside. In a brief seven-minute address, Biden focused on hope, the need for unity and his administration’s achievements for Black Americans.
“I’ve been doing this a long time,” he acknowledged. “And I’ve honest to God never felt more optimistic about America’s future.”
Read more here.
– Callum Jones, deputy business editor
Lie of the week – Trump claims he ‘has no idea’ who is behind Project 2025
Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, a plan from the Heritage Foundation for the next conservative presidency – including stacking the government with political lackeys, attacking LGBTQ+ rights and diversity efforts, and starting mass deportations.
Despite Trump’s claims otherwise, the policies aren’t too far off from what he has proposed for a second term, in his own platform, Agenda 47.
And he knows the people behind Project 2025: the authors of the project are stacked with Trumpworld figures. No fewer than 31 of the 38 people who helped write or edit it served in Trump’s administration or transition team, noted journalist Judd Legum.
– Rachel Leingang, misinformation reporter
