Democrats are uncommonly unified and motivated, while Republicans are scrambling.

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It’s hard to imagine things going better for Vice President Harris than they have over the last 10 days. A huge infusion of cash. Improvement in the polls. Donald Trump freaking out, saying even weirder stuff than usual and telling people he’ll “fix” our political system so they won’t have to vote again in four years. Democrats are uncommonly unified and motivated, while Republicans are scrambling to settle on a message that doesn’t involve calling Harris a “ding dong” who “giggles.”

Will the momentum continue? I’m here with fellow Post columnists Molly Roberts and Catherine Rampell to discuss how Harris can keep the energy going.

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Dana Milbank: This was always going to be an extremely close race and still will be. Republicans will settle on a message, even if it’s the old standby of calling Harris a socialist/communist/Marxist lunatic. Democrats will be Democrats and squabble among themselves. That said, Harris has an opportunity to extend her winning streak for a few more weeks with her VP pick and with the Democratic convention, perhaps followed by debates if Trump will allow them to happen. So what should Harris be doing now to spread the appeal of Kamalot to all the land?

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Molly Roberts: Ah, I see you’ve used the word “weird” in your intro! It’s become a popular way to describe the GOP among campaign surrogates and even Harris herself. I do think leaning in to the meme-mentum is helpful, from both sides: to create a favorable image of Kamala (see: “coconut-pilling”) and to forge an unfavorable one of Trump and JD Vance. A lot of what’s happened here can be described as a vibe shift from the listless, almost inert, aura of President Biden’s campaign to something more energetic. That fits, of course, with a younger and fresher candidate. So keeping the viral content rolling with whatever trends pop up on social media is smart.

Dana: Yes, the weirdness is a good theme because it goes beyond political leaning. These people are objectively odd.

Catherine Rampell: I think the most helpful thing would be to embrace the “Kamala is a cop” meme that incidentally helped sink her presidential primary campaign in 2020. What was a liability then is a huge asset now because crime is the issue on which Republicans have the greatest advantage over Democrats (even more so than immigration or inflation, if you look at polling). Harris has talked about her prior career as a prosecutor in her stump speeches, but usually in the context of Trump’s felony convictions and other tenuous relationships with the law. “Crook vs. cop” is a nice (alliterative!) framing, but I’m not sure it’s sufficient to win over more moderate voters, who might not have been following Trump’s trials closely. Better to talk about the broader Democratic record on reducing violent crime, what she’d do to help, her prosecutorial bona fides, etc.

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Dana: Catherine, that raises an interesting question of whether Harris should be talking about her record at all, or just taking it straight to Trump. I think that 10-minute riff of her saying “I’m the prosecutor and he’s the felon” should be the melody of the campaign, over and over again.

Catherine: Yeah, again, I think it’s a catchy-sounding frame — prosecutor vs. felon. But I think it’s smarter to talk about the crimes that voters actually seem freaked out about. Like if they were really worried about Trump’s crimes, this election........

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