The Harris honeymoon

Plus: Biden’s SCOTUS reforms.

Good morning and happy Monday! There are 99 days to go until Election Day. Speaking of…

1. The Harris honeymoon

Graphic by RealClearPolitics

Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is officially one week old — and Democrats are still crowing about the rollout.

$200 million raised. 170,000 volunteers signed up. A record-breaking Zoom.

Now, the question this week is: can the honeymoon last — and can she get ahead?

As the RealClearPolitics graphic above shows, Harris has noticeably improved on Biden’s margins in the polls, although she remains behind by an average of 1.7 percentage points. New polls from The Wall Street Journal (Trump +2), The New York Times (Trump +1), CNN (Trump +3), and other outlets all show the former president retaining his lead, although it has shrunk to within the margin of error.

Harris will be closely watched this week to see how she handles incoming attacks, as Trump seeks to tie her to Biden’s unpopular economic record and surge in border crossings — emphasizing her role as the administration’s point person on migration — and unearth positions from her 2019 primary campaign. Harris has yet to sit for her first interview since announcing her campaign, something that’s likely coming in the next few days; in addition to those policy topics, she’ll likely have to answer uncomfortable questions about Biden and her observations of his mental acuity through the years.

As for getting ahead of Trump, Harris has two golden opportunities in the coming weeks: her vice presidential selection, which is expected in the next 10 days, and the Democratic convention, which will kick off on August 19. The VP pick and convention are generally moments in the campaign when a candidate sees their polling rise — although the Biden-Harris swap stepped on Trump’s post-convention bump.

The Harris veep contenders have been blanketing the airwaves with their auditions for the post: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear seeking to draw a contrast with Trump running mate J.D. Vance; Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg trying to charm Fox News; Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro doing his best Obama impression, and so on.

Whoever ends up on top, the veepstakes has at least granted Harris a new campaign message, courtesy of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz: branding Trump as “weird.” Walz, the favorite VP contender of the progressive set, was the first to use the label, in an interview on MSNBC, and now hardly a Harris campaign press release goes by without branding Trump and Vance as such.

By Saturday, the attack line had filtered up to the vice president herself: “You may have noticed, Donald Trump has been resorting to some wild lies about my record,” Harris said at a Massachusetts fundraiser. “And some of what he and his running mate are saying, well, it’s just plain weird. I mean that’s the box you put that in.”

2. Biden calls for SCOTUS reforms

President Biden is still finding his footing in a new world where he isn’t a presidential candidate and his party is fawning over his No. 2. Today, he will use a speech at the LBJ Library in Austin to launch a longer-than-long-shot policy effort that he’ll promote in his final months as president: Supreme Court reform.

“We can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power,” Biden wrote in a Washington Post op-ed this morning. “We can and must restore the public’s faith in the Supreme Court. We can and must strengthen the guardrails of democracy.”

Biden is proposing three reforms:

1. A constitutional amendment overturning the court’s recent decision granting presidents immunity for official acts

2. A new regime of term limits for the justices, in which every two years, the president is able to appoint a new justice who will serve 18 years on the bench

3. An enforceable code of conduct for the justices

Biden, a former Senate Judiciary Committee chair, has long been opposed to Supreme Court reform. In his op-ed, he cites the court’s recent decisions and scandals (including “undisclosed gifts to justices” and “conflicts of interest connected with Jan. 6 insurrectionists”) as explaining his conversion — but when he first committed to the idea earlier this month, it appeared to be part of an 11th-hour attempt to preserve progressive support as his presidential campaign floundered.

Now, his campaign is over and Biden is sticking with the proposals, although they each have little hope of advancing. A constitutional amendment requires support from 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of the states, while the other two measures would have to pass through a divided Congress (and potentially be approved as amendments as well, if struck down by the justices).

In a statement this morning, Harris endorsed the proposals, effectively making them a new part of the Democratic platform in the campaign.

3. More news to know

Venezuela’s Maduro and opposition are locked in standoff as both claim victory in presidential vote / AP

Region braces for Netanyahu to decide Israeli response to Golan Heights strike / WaPo

Gunman at Trump Rally Was Often a Step Ahead of the Secret Service / NYT

Trump’s falling legal fees free up campaign cash / Axios

Mark Meadows seeks Supreme Court intervention in bid for immunity from Georgia election subversion prosecution / CNN

4. The day ahead

All times Eastern

• Biden: The president will travel to Texas, where he will unveil his Supreme Court reform proposal at the LBJ Library in Austin at 4:30 p.m. and pay respects to the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) in Houston at 7:30 p.m.

• Harris: The VP has nothing on her public schedule today.

• Veepstakes: Govs. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) and Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), two Harris running mate contenders, will headline a rally in Pennsylvania together for the Harris campaign.

• Senate: The upper chamber will vote on confirmation of Adam Landy to be a judge on the U.S. Tax Court.

• House: The lower chamber is out until September.

5. Thanks for reading

Have a great rest of your day!