When President Biden passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris in July she immediately changed the momentum of the 2024 election and energized the Democrats' base voters. The Democratic National Convention reflected this new energy and excitement. It was a joyful event, especially compared to the Republican National Convention which was like a funeral and cult meeting mixed with a coronation. Public opinion polls since show a historic reversal of momentum as Harris rapidly caught up with Donald Trump.

Harris was able to do this by channeling a high-dominance leadership style, whereas shown by her one, and now only debate with Trump, she publicly humiliated him by being smarter and sharper in her thinking, exposing his fake alpha male bully persona.

Harris’ high-dominance messaging when she first became the nominee delivered a serious blow to Trump’s tough guy image and undermined his morale.

Unfortunately, Harris and the Democrats have lost their momentum in recent weeks. They were like an army on the counterattack against Trump and his MAGA forces. They are now bogged down in the mud in what has become a battle of attrition.

The public opinion polls show that a little over two weeks before Election Day, Harris and Trump are basically tied both nationally and in the key battleground states. Early voting in the battleground state of Georgia has shown high levels of turnout. This can be interpreted as either a positive sign for Harris (energized voters who want to stop Trump) or as a positive for Trump (Harris is viewed as the incumbent and tied closely to President Biden; Trump’s “quiet” or “secret” voters are turning out in droves). Trump continues to dominate the news headlines for his escalating threats against democracy and freedom, promises to be a dictator on “day one,” and plans to imprison his and the MAGA movement’s “enemies.” In what many mainstream political observers and professional centrists have described as foolish given the importance of the battleground states, Trump is also planning rallies and other events in blue states. I believe that Trump’s blue state rallies are a stroke of tactical and strategic genius.

During an interview last Sunday on Fox News, Trump transparently stated how he will basically end the Constitution by using the military to crush “the left” and his other opposition: “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within… totally destroying our country… [I]n terms of Election Day, I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big— and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by [the] National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

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Harris is pushing back against aspiring Dictator Trump by publicly warning about his apparent mental and emotional instability and extreme dangerousness to the country and world. The question is, with 15 days left, early voting already taking place and a highly polarized public where too many Americans, despite the existential stakes, are disengaged and undecided about the election and politics more generally, will Harris be able to channel enough high-dominance leadership energy to defeat Trump?

M. Steven Fish is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, Fish has appeared on BBC, CNN, and other major networks, and has published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Foreign Policy, among others. His new book is “Comeback: Routing Trumpism, Reclaiming the Nation, and Restoring Democracy's Edge.”

In this conversation, Fish explains how and why Harris and the Democrats lost their momentum against Trump and the MAGAfied Republicans by not continuing with her high-dominance leadership style. Fish also offers some specific advice for how Harris can defeat Trump by emphasizing how he sides with America’s enemies and is escalating his fascist threats against the American people. Fish counsels that Trump’s appeal among alienated men in the so-called manosphere is actually an opportunity for Harris to undermine his appeal among that group.

We have about two weeks before Election Day. How are you feeling? Where are we?

In the weeks following the debate on September 10, the Harris-Walz campaign lost momentum, and you can see it in the deadlocked swing-state polls that were earlier trending their way. The main reason is that the Democrats again grew skittish about delivering provocative, attention-grabbing messaging that controls the news cycle and drives home a narrative of strength, success and optimism. This represents a change from the first two months of Harris’ campaign when the Democrats were dominating both Trump and the news. Consequently, the headlines again shifted to Trump’s shock-and-awe attacks on democracy and the Democrats and Harris’ struggles to strike back. Fortunately, there are signs over the past week that the........

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