From the beginning of President Biden’s ill-fated re-election bid, Democrats struggled to frame the race as a choice between two radically different visions, rather than a referendum on Mr. Biden’s age and abilities.
But now that he has dropped out and Vice President Kamala Harris is cruising toward the Democratic nomination, her party sees fresh opportunities to turn the public’s attention back to the vulnerabilities of former President Donald J. Trump on key issues for voters, including abortion rights, fundamental democratic principles and questions of economic fairness.
Democrats hope that Ms. Harris — a history-making former prosecutor who is nearly two decades younger than Mr. Trump — can draw a sharp new set of contrasts and tap into arguments that were out of reach for Mr. Biden, 81, starting with the issue of age but extending into matters of policy and personality.
That is especially clear on abortion rights. Mr. Biden, a practicing Catholic, has long been uncomfortable discussing the issue, or even saying the word “abortion.” Ms. Harris, by contrast, speaks easily and openly about reproductive health and has held campaign events alongside women sharing their stories of miscarriages, abortions and challenges with fertility.
Republicans, for their part, plan to argue that Ms. Harris still owns the unpopular parts of Mr. Biden’s record, saying that she is also weak on issues like inflation and immigration. Polling has shown Mr. Trump with significant advantages on many of the most important issues for voters, other than abortion rights.
But in interviews, Democrats were eager to make the race about character and experience, noting Ms. Harris’s law enforcement background and Mr. Trump’s litany of legal problems.
“She is a former prosecutor and he is a convicted felon,” said Marcia L. Fudge, a former housing secretary in the Biden administration who said she had spoken with Ms. Harris on Sunday. “If there ever was a huge choice, this is it.”
Mr. Biden’s miserable debate performance late last month stole the spotlight from Mr. Trump’s 34-count felony conviction in Manhattan. Many Democrats had hoped Mr. Trump’s criminal status could be used to their advantage, but that line of attack was put on hold as Mr. Biden tried to quell the Democratic revolt against his candidacy.
Democrats are now moving to renew it, casting Ms. Harris as the “rule of law” candidate and hammering home the fact that the twice-impeached Mr. Trump sought to overturn the results of a free election.
“What is particularly important, especially in this case, is her history as a prosecutor — someone who has stood for law and order,” said Representative Veronica Escobar, a Texas Democrat who served as a co-chair of Mr. Biden’s campaign. Mr. Trump, she added, is “a convicted criminal, who not just violates the law, but believes very firmly that the law does not apply to him and his supporters.”
Before being elected to the Senate in 2016, Ms. Harris served as the district attorney of San Francisco and the attorney general of California. She sometimes struggled to discuss her history in law enforcement and matters of criminal justice during her 2020 presidential campaign, when many Democrats were pushing to rein in the powers of the police.
But she relishes bringing up those roles on the campaign trail now, and her allies say she will try to wield them against Mr. Trump as she makes the case that he is unfit to return to the White House.
“As many of you know, I am a former prosecutor, so I say: Let’s look at the facts, shall we?” Ms. Harris said to roars from a crowd in North Carolina last week before dissecting the policy differences between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump.
Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for the Harris campaign, said the vice president would press her “contrast” with Mr. Trump.
“Vice President Kamala Harris has held criminals accountable her entire career — and Donald Trump will be no different,” Mr. Moussa said in a statement. “Vice President Harris has dedicated her career to making life better for working people — while Trump only cares about himself.”
In a statement, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, tried to undermine Ms. Harris’s credentials by accusing her of embracing “pro-criminal, soft-on-crime policies.”
While worries about public safety have been galvanizing in some elections, no issue has energized Ms. Harris, or Democratic voters, more than abortion rights. The issue has fueled a spate of Democratic victories in recent years, and helped Ms. Harris recover her political footing after a shaky start to her term as vice president. Ms. Harris says she has appeared at nearly 100 events on reproductive rights since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision two years ago.
“This election will be won on abortion rights and there is no one better to make the case to voters,” said Jessica Mackler, the president of Emily’s List, which supports Democratic female candidates who back abortion rights. The group has fiercely defended Ms. Harris and has used polls to test messaging about her political strengths and weaknesses.
Its research, Ms. Mackler said, found that highlighting Ms. Harris’s work on abortion rights “will turn out the voters we need to win in November — young voters, women and voters of color.”
Abortion access was top of mind on Sunday as Ms. Harris and her staff made the case to other Democrats that they should back her, according to a list of talking points used to outline those conversations that was reviewed by The New York Times.
Ms. Harris is the party’s “leading messenger” on abortion rights, according to the document, and will make certain that Mr. Trump’s role in overturning Roe “is front and center in this election.”
When talking to voters about the issue, Ms. Harris often strives to make it personal. recounting how she was motivated to become a prosecutor after learning in high school that her best friend was being molested by her stepfather. This year, she became the highest-ranking federal official to visit an abortion clinic. She has slammed abortion restrictions in red states as “Trump abortion bans.”
“We believe in freedom,” Ms. Harris said last week at an event in Michigan. “Freedom from the government telling us what to do about matters of heart and home. We believe in the right of people to make basic decisions like when and if they will start a family.”
Her messaging on abortion has been far clearer than that of Mr. Biden, who supports abortion rights but struggled to articulate his position at the debate last month.
Republicans, for their part, are hoping to blur any policy differences between Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden.
Ms. Harris’s “dismal record is one of complete failure and utter incompetence,” Mr. Cheung said. “Her policies are Biden’s policies, and vice versa.”
Even before Mr. Biden dropped out, the Trump campaign had a plan to attack Ms. Harris if she became the nominee: tie her to the most unpopular parts of the president’s record.
At the Republican National Convention last week, speaker after speaker misleadingly referred to Ms. Harris as the Biden administration’s “border czar.” They argued that the large numbers of undocumented migrants crossing into the United States were her fault. Polls have shown that voters give Mr. Biden low marks for his handling of the border crisis, although Democrats have criticized Mr. Trump for persuading Republican lawmakers to walk away from a bipartisan immigration deal.
Inflation has also bedeviled Mr. Biden. Although cost increases have slowed and the causes of inflation are complex, Republicans have squarely blamed the president and his policies for rising prices. Voters say they are unhappy with Mr. Biden’s stewardship of the economy, and negative views of inflation have helped sap his support from Black and Hispanic voters, both crucial parts of the Democratic coalition. As Mr. Biden’s partner in government, Ms. Harris will have to overcome that glum mood.
“I’d take the next three weeks and hang the Biden White House’s failures on her,” said David Kochel, a Republican strategist based in Iowa. “Most people think the country is going in the wrong direction. They need to place her right in the middle of that.”
Republicans wasted no time starting their attacks. On Monday, the Trump campaign said in an email that “Kamala Harris is Joe Biden 2.0.”
And less than an hour after Mr. Biden dropped out, the leading pro-Trump super PAC posted an ad on X saying Ms. Harris had “covered up” the president’s “mental decline” and was responsible for his “failed record.”
“Look what she got done,” the ad’s female narrator says. “A border invasion. Runaway inflation. The American dream, dead.”
But Ms. Harris’s supporters were working to turn the tables on Mr. Trump at every turn.
Erin Wilson, the vice president’s White House deputy chief of staff, said in a call on Sunday with the group Win With Black Women that Ms. Harris would use her skills as a prosecutor to lace into Mr. Trump, who at 78 is only three years younger than Mr. Biden, and use his age against him.
Left unsaid: That argument had been impossible for Democrats to make with Mr. Biden at the top of the ticket.
Kate Kelly and Reid J. Epstein contributed reporting.
