AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Another day, another Kamala Harris rally in a swing state.
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VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: We are running this campaign on behalf of all Americans, from red states to blue states, from the heartland to the coast. And when elected, we will govern on behalf of all Americans.
(CHEERING)
RASCOE: That was the Democratic presidential nominee in Las Vegas last night along with running mate Tim Walz. Nevada was the fifth state they visited since she chose Walz to be her vice presidential pick just last Tuesday. NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson joins us now to talk politics. Good morning, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning.
RASCOE: So Harris has been trying to swing those swing states over into the Democrats column, and a few polls have come out from those states. What are they showing?
LIASSON: Well, The New York Times/Siena poll shows that Harris is now leading Trump in three states - Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin - by about four points. Those are the important blue wall states. This is still within the margin of error. We don't have a whole lot of other polls on those states or other battlegrounds yet. But NPR's poll last week showed Harris has a little lead over Trump nationally in the popular vote.
Of course, we don't elect our presidents by popular vote. We have a winner-take-all state-by-state system, where it's possible for the candidate with fewer votes to win, as Donald Trump did in 2016. So for a Democrat to win the electoral college, the general rule of thumb is they have to be ahead by about five to six points nationally, and Harris is not there yet.
The Trump campaign says Harris' polls are just a honeymoon. They're not going to last. And they point out that Trump is still ahead with voters on the questions of who is a strong leader, who's better on the economy or the border.
RASCOE: But how did Harris manage to gain ground on Trump like she has?
LIASSON: Well, one - No. 1, she's not Joe Biden. She's not old. She's young, and she's vigorous. And the fact that the polls tightened so quickly shows that one of the biggest drags on the Democratic ticket was Biden himself. It wasn't that the public was rejecting the Biden-Harris agenda.
The other reason is that Harris completed job No. 1 really well. She unified her party. She brought back young people, voters of color, who Biden had been hemorrhaging. She injected a big volt of enthusiasm to the Democratic Party. And you can see that in her crowd size and the money she's raised.
And then she picked as a vice presidential running mate Tim Walz, and Democrats are pretty excited about him. I think the question now is, can she do job two, and that is to change the dynamic of the race and make it a referendum on Donald Trump.
RASCOE: So what does Harris have to do to make that happen?
LIASSON: Well, she has to defend - define herself before the Trump campaign can define her. She has to make Trump into the incumbent. After all, he does have a record in office. The way she's doing that is with that campaign chant, we are not going back. This is the way Harris says, she's the future. Trump is the past. She is the change candidate. And also, she's gonna have to answer those attacks on her for being too liberal, for prices being too high, for the Southern border being too out of control and also the attacks on Walz that he misrepresented his military record.
RASCOE: The swing state rallies this past week have, you know, certainly given Harris a lot of opportunities to define herself. I imagine that's what they all about.
LIASSON: That's right. There's no doubt about that. And, of course, she's got the Democratic Convention coming up on the 19th. She'll have a whole week of attention to herself to make - to deliver her message.
RASCOE: The Trump campaign just said it has been hacked. What can you tell us about that?
LIASSON: The Trump campaign says it was a - hacked, and we have a report from Microsoft that says the hack was done by Iranians who stole internal documents, some of which might have related to the vetting of vice presidential nominee JD Vance. The Trump campaign says the hack was intended to interfere with the 2024 elections and sow chaos. That's all we know at this time.
RASCOE: That's NPR's Mara Liasson. Thank you so much for joining us.
LIASSON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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