It is the dissonance at the heart of Kamala Harris's campaign that tells the story of where we are at in 2024. 

While she is relying on women — a literal femininomenon — to come out to vote in what could be the most gendered election in history, she has barely spoken a word about her own identity as a Black woman and the history-making she is embarking on.

So potent is the backlash against identity politics, Harris has been largely and deliberately silent on the historic nature of her candidacy and potential victory. If history is about to be made, it could be made by swing-state women in secret — breaking from their husbands and Trump-loving communities. There is a dystopian quality to this campaign that has confounded me.

The Harris strategy has been widely lauded as correcting the mistakes of the 2016 Clinton campaign, which overly focused on the election of the first female president. As the racist and sexist rhetoric of her opponents has increased, Harris has stood up to denounce it without ever including herself in the narrative. It has been the masterstroke of her campaign; she has stood as the physical embodiment of so much vitriol — yet she has drifted above it — allowing her opponent to further reveal his characteristic cruel and over-the-top rhetoric. If anyone believes that she is a "low IQ" candidate as her opponent has tried to paint her, they might need their own IQ test.

Harris has had a short election campaign — four months to introduce herself to a bitterly divided nation, running against a man who is so well known everyone already has an opinion on him — and the result on Wednesday will dictate whether key decisions are applauded or criticised. I'll give you an example.

If Harris wins Pennsylvania, a key swing state, her decision to appoint Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her VP will have been fine. If she loses it, the recriminations will begin over her failure to appoint the popular Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro as her VP.

Another example is the strategy to have a steady stream of celebrities platformed by the campaign. From Beyonce to JLo to Cardi B — Harris has been on stage with the world's biggest stars. The strategy is about attention — Harris and Trump are in a competition for eyeballs. Celebrity endorsements are an eyeball sugar hit and an access point to low information voters, but if she doesn't get over the line this week, again, the recriminations will begin with criticism the star-studded approach the campaign embraced was out of touch with rust belt America.

The Harris campaign has been strategic about endorsement. JLo's intervention as a Puerto Rican was powerful after the racism of the Trump campaign — if there's any way to use celebrities it is like this. Harris's campaign has leant on the identity of others — but not her own.

Biden in the shadows

But out of all the decisions the campaign has made, it is the tension around how to deal with the Biden legacy that has been Harris's biggest disruptor. 

Even last week when the campaign was using the vile racism made by a comedian at the Trump rally about Puerto Ricans to persuade Latinos that Trump is not to be trusted, Biden called Trump's supporters garbage (he later clarified and apologised) and gave the Trump campaign a free kick.

It's not the first time Biden has created problems by going off script. But just as Harris was trying to deliver her closing argument for her campaign, emphasising the need to unify the country after Trump's "divisiveness", Biden's mistake became amplified and muddied the waters at the exact wrong time.

Harris has struggled to manage the Biden relationship throughout her campaign. He represents status quo, a continuation that Americans are trying to reject. Her greatest problem has been being unprepared to rip herself from his legacy. Americans want a change candidate and at times she has struggled to differentiate herself from Biden. Will the electorate reward her loyalty? After all, loyalty is a laudable attribute. The answer is no — she can only win if she's established the case that she is not the continuation of Biden.

Her lowest campaign moment was in her high-profile appearance on The View where she was asked whether there is anything she would have done differently than Biden over the past four years.

"There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of — and I've been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact," she said.

She appeared to backtrack on that answer later in the show and since.

The Biden relationship has been her Achilles' heel — she has been wedged between wanting to stay loyal and wanting to be the change candidate. Whether she's created enough distance from Biden is a key element of how many will vote.

Loading

 

Don't compare her to the almighty

As a candidate Harris has been underrated and underestimated. She has run a smooth and largely seamless campaign which is extraordinary given the time she had. 

Has the short time helped or hindered her? We will never know if a longer, more traditional run would have given her a chance to get her flying hours up and sharpen her message. But she has managed to begin a campaign with joy and positivity and end it with sharp warnings about what the alternative would be.

Every word she has uttered has been analysed while her opponent has been able to say literally anything and still, the polls barely shift.

"We expect her to be intelligent and articulate, to have a clear set of policies, to never show too much anger, to prove time and time again that she belongs," Michelle Obama said in Michigan this week.

"But for Trump, we expect nothing at all: no understanding of policy, no ability to put together a coherent argument, no honesty, no decency, no morals. Instead, too many people are willing to write off his childish, mean-spirited antics by saying, well, 'Trump's just being Trump.'"

Michelle Obama articulated the view of so many — particularly women — who have watched on as two candidates are held to vastly different standards. Harris must be the perfect candidate while Trump has broken so many taboos, his extremism has become normalised and joked away. Trump can be Trump; Harris doesn't get that same privilege.

In recent weeks the Harris campaign has been seeking to remind women that their vote is secret. The subtext is that women can vote for Harris without their Trump-loving husbands and boyfriends finding out.

If you don't believe this gender divide is a thing, Fox News personality Jesse Watters has said that if he found out his wife "was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that's the same thing as having an affair". Polarisation isn't just a phenomenon in the community, it is playing out in marriages and relationships.

If Harris prevails this week she will have vanquished the unvanquishable. She will have done it on the backs of women who chose to turn the page on the misogyny of the past decade. Some will have done it loudly, others quietly in their polling booth.

When Grammy-winning artist and rapper Cardi B addressed the crowd at Harris's rally in Milwaukee this weekend she said "I've been waiting for this moment my whole life. Are we ready to make history?"

"Just like Kamala Harris, I too have been the underdog," she said.

"My success, belittled and discredited.

"Women have to work 10 times harder … and still people question us, how we got to the top?"

The world is watching.

Patricia Karvelas is the presenter of RN Breakfast and co-host of the Party Room podcast. She also hosts Q+A on ABC TV Mondays at 9.35pm.