Kamala Harris Has a Brief Window Before the Attacks Really Begin

In the span of a few weeks, Kamala Harris has accomplished the seemingly impossible. The presumptive Democratic nominee has navigated the most politically fraught situation imaginable — a president’s reluctant abdication from the Democratic ticket — and rallied the party around her. She’s outmaneuvered potential rivals, galvanized voters and volunteers, shattered fund-raising records and pulled the Democratic campaign out of free fall.

Now comes the hard part: She must gird for a take-no-prisoners general election battle against Donald Trump. Between now and when the Democratic convention kicks off on Aug. 19, the vice president should frame the race on her own terms by establishing her identity, projecting strength, parrying Mr. Trump’s attacks immediately and continuing her pivot to offense.

Ms. Harris’s nearly flawless start knocked the Trump campaign on its heels. Convinced that Joe Biden, a doddering octogenarian, would be the nominee, Mr. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have groped for a line of attack against the relatively youthful Ms. Harris.

“They wanted this to be about a weak, dithering president who couldn’t handle the fact that the world was on fire and inflation and the border were out of control,” said Tim Miller, a former communications director for Jeb Bush. “And then this happens and discombobulates it all. And they haven’t landed on how to pivot.”

But Mr. Trump has plenty of heavy weaponry at his disposal.Unlike his previous races, when he went through campaign managers the way the Borgias went through family, the former president’s 2024 campaign has been a relatively no-drama affair, run by the political veterans Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita.

Ms. Harris has her own formidable team, including the campaign chair, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, inherited from the Biden campaign, and the spokesman Brian Fallon. Her campaign is rumored to be talking with David Plouffe, who led Barack Obama’s winning 2008 campaign and whose strategic acumen would be a good fit with Ms. O’Malley Dillon’s ground game.