Observing the US presidential election from afar can sometimes feel like watching a surreal, Hunger Games-like race to the finish. It begins with the party primaries, where potential candidates duke it out state by state. The candidates get whittled down as the members vote for their respective delegates, until one final contender emerges.
Their candidacy for the November national election is then confirmed at massive national conventions, where the party faithful come together to support the party’s anointed choice with an almost religious-like fervour.
This election has been somewhat different, though.
The Democratic Party essentially endorsed the incumbent, President Joe Biden, from the get-go, with each state primary being essentially a box-ticking exercise.
Over in the Republican Party, Donald Trump was always going to win the candidacy, despite an initially large field of contenders.
Early polling before the primaries began indicated Florida Governor Ron DeSantis could be a viable rival for the candidacy. In the end, only former North Carolina governor Nikki Haley managed to make any kind of inroad into Trump’s support.
And now, that has been completely upended and America finds itself in uncharted territory, with President Biden bowing out of the race after the primaries but before the ratifying national convention to be held in August.
New candidates will now come forward (at the time of writing, the only confirmed candidates are Vice-president Kamala Harris and a former candidate, little-known self-help author Marianne Williamson).
The party rules mean the various state party delegates who were poised to vote for Biden at the convention are now, in theory, free to vote for whichever candidate they wish.
Early indicators are that Harris is essentially the candidate in waiting. Endorsed by Biden and a slew of high-ranking Democrats and donors, Harris will likely be confirmed through an online voting process as the candidate prior to the formal vote at the convention.
Even though public opinion polls suggest there would be widespread public support for former first lady Michelle Obama, it is the party support that is needed, not Democratic voters at large.
Many delegates who pledged to Biden are likely to vote Harris as she is who he has endorsed as his pick.
So we are seeing something of a repeat of the 2016 election: Donald Trump running against a high-profile female former lawyer who, if she can unite the Democrat party behind her, would pose a serious threat to what was looking like a Trump win for certain.
Kamala Harris is comparatively young compared with Trump (she is 59 versus his 78).
She has been relatively successful in her political and professional career thus far (she was previously elected attorney-general for the state of California and was the second black female senator when she was elected in 2016).
Significantly, she represents ethnic minorities and immigrants (her father is Jamaican, and her mother is Indian).
These qualities may well bring back some of the disaffected Democrats and independent voters who were turned off voting for either Trump or Biden, so-called "hate watchers" of the first presidential debate.
But, just like was the case for Hilary Clinton, Trump has already begun the hateful rhetoric towards her. He has described her variously as a communist, pathetic, a "cackling co-pilot" and " f...... bad."
Conservative pundits on US politics are similarly scathing.
For instance, Jake Wallis Simons for The Telegraph has described her as "incompetent and deeply weird, lacking self-awareness, a radical progressive" and that she may be selected "not by talent but by race".
It feels like something of a step back in time to eight years ago, when Trump and his supporters used barely veiled, if not overt, misogynistic language to describe Hilary Clinton.
She was a "nasty woman" who constantly played the "woman card", who was too sensitive at the same time as being emotionless and "surrounded by bodyguards".
Harris will seek to engage with young voters and female voters, who are still angered after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the long-standing national-level right to abortion.
At the same time, she will need to provide a robust policy stance on immigration, something she failed to do while in charge of the portfolio under Biden.
Neither Trump nor Harris is, as yet, exciting the population at large. Fivethirtyeight.com politics meta poll analysis gives both candidates very high disapproval ratings — Harris gets 50.4% disapproval and only 38.6% approval, whereas Trump’s unfavourability rating sits at 53.7%, versus 41.7% favourability.
Kamala Harris’ slogan for some time has been "what can be, unburdened by what has been".
She will be hoping that she is not burdened by the ghost of Hilary Clinton’s campaign — one which won the popular vote but ultimately lost the presidency.
■Elizabeth Soal is a PhD candidate at the University of Otago researching democratic legitimacy and collaborative policy development processes. She is the co-host of the American politics podcast What’s the Story Old Glory with Todd Muller.
