The Republican Party, we’ve been told by its critics, is the party of primitive tribalism, driven more by grievance and a cult following of one man than a principled worldview. Democrats, meanwhile, are supposedly the pragmatic party of what works, unmoved by the celebrity of one politician.

But Vice President Kamala Harris’s rapid rise in the polls blows this myth to pieces. Just two months ago, President Joe Biden and his policies were widely disliked, and Harris was regarded as even less capable than her failing poss. From the border crisis to inflation to war in the Middle East, the policies of the incumbent Democratic Biden-Harris administration were seen as complete failures. Biden was underwater on each issue by double digits in every poll.