Kamala Harris will need to win over Republican-leaning voters who went with Joe Biden in 2020 if she is to beat Donald Trump, according to Ireland's former ambassador to the US.
Ms Harris is all but certain to be the Democratic nominee for president after Mr Biden withdrew from the running.
Daniel Mulhall was the Irish Ambassador to the US from September 2017 to August 2022, for the majority of Mr Trump's presidency and a large portion of Mr Biden's term.
In an interview with BreakingNews.ie, Mr Mulhall said Donald Trump will still be the favourite, but that Ms Harris gives the Democratic Party a much better chance in the November vote.
If the election were held tomorrow, Donald Trump would almost certainly win.
"It's still a 50/50 call I would say. In fact, if the election were held tomorrow, Donald Trump would almost certainly win. But the election is not being held for three and a half months and in that time Kamala Harris has to convince people that the vice president, not very highly regarded by the public at times, that Kamala Harris has been replaced by a much more vigorous, dynamic and forceful person.
"Kamala Harris the presidential candidate. I still think this campaign will come down to Kamala Harris persuading people, particularly suburban Republican-leaning people who voted for Joe Biden last time. She needs them to vote for her this time, and we will see if she has the ability to convince these people to vote for her as they did for Joe Biden four years ago.
"It's going to also be a case of her persuading people that Donald Trump is too big of a risk, a threat to the republic, reproductive healthcare. All these things are vulnerabilities for Trump."
On Mr Biden's decision to withdraw from the 2024 race, Mr Mulhall said "overall, he did the right thing".
"I think what happened in the past few weeks is the pressure built up on him. In particular, senior people in the Democratic Party got through to him and made the point that his candidacy was risking a return to the White House by Donald Trump. He couldn't beat Donald Trump after that terrible debate performance, and therefore, I think he did the right thing in deciding to stand aside and leave the field open to another candidate to take on Trump.
"That debate showed two things... he has become quite frail, and he's not as sharp as he once was. Secondly, he was simply unable to make the case against Donald Trump.
"It wasn't just the debate but all the follow-up interviews he gave and speeches he gave, all of them were at best adequate and probably a little less than adequate.
"He lost major ground during the CNN debate, and he never really recovered that ground because any time he went out in public after that, he tended to stumble further. I think the danger was as things went on, even if he got the nomination, he could have continued to have these disastrous public performances that would have undermined his chances of beating Donald Trump.
"I think overall he did the right thing."
He feels Ms Harris will face an "uphill struggle" and will have to improve her overall popularity.
However, he pointed to advantages Ms Harris will have, including the fact Mr Trump, 78, is now the "old man" in the race to Ms Harris' 59.
Ms Harris previously worked as a prosecutor, and Mr Mulhall feels she will be better positioned than Mr Biden to point out some of Mr Trump's flaws and unpopular policies.
Donald Trump is now the old man, running for election against a younger woman.
"The problem she has is that she's not that popular. She is maybe a tad more popular than president Biden. Matched up against Donald Trump in hypothetical polls, she does better than Biden, but she is still beaten by Trump in most cases.
"She faces an uphill struggle. She has to now reintroduce herself to the American people by going out there and being a Kamala Harris that wants to be president and making a forceful case for herself as America's future president, and against Donald Trump as someone who she is going to paint presumably as a danger to American democracy and a threat to the liberties of American women in particular.
"She will be able to go and travel the country, give speeches all over the place, and come across as a forceful, youthful figure. Donald Trump is now the old man, running for election against a younger woman."
While Ms Harris will have to "own" the successes and failures of the Biden administration, Mr Mulhall feels she can position this to her advantage.
"She will be better able in public to make the case for the success of the American economy, the way it has recovered during the last four years since the pandemic and the mess at the end of Trump's term.
"She's simply more articulate than Biden. Biden has lost the ability to get his message across in a cogent and sharp way, she will have cogency and sharpness he just didn't have. Therefore, she'll be able to make these points about the economy more forceful and possibly more effective."
He also said she will have to learn from her failed campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2019.
"She is going to inherit a huge campaign apparatus. I know some of the people in that campaign; Jen O'Malley Dillon, who runs it, and Mike Donelan. These are very experienced operators and know how to run political campaigns.
"I think they will help her iron out things that have held her back in the past. The problem with Kamala Harris is, when she was campaigning in the Democratic primaries in 2019, her campaign fizzled out, and she didn't make the first primary in February 2020.
"That record is there, and she has to make sure she doesn't repeat that performance.
"One would expect four years in the vice presidency would have given her time to learn some lessons and improve the way she operates in public."
Mr Mulhall feels Mr Trump's selection of Ohio senator JD Vance as his running mate is actually a weakness rather than a strength for the former president.
"I think Trump made himself more vulnerable by choosing JD Vance as his vice presidential candidate because while Vance is a very smart guy, he is far out there and more to the right than Donald Trump. This is on a number of issues, including the war in Ukraine where he appears to be against any further US support, and also on reproductive rights, where he has an extreme position on no abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.
"This gives the Harris campaign a rich target to aim at."
On Ms Harris' running mate, Mr Mulhall said the likes of Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, North Carolina governor Roy Cooper and Kentucky governor Andy Beshear will all be candidates.
He predicted the Democratic campaign will be as much about highlighting the dangers of Donald Trump, as Ms Harris' strengths.
"I think a lot of it will target the unpopular policies Trump is associated with.
"If the election was tomorrow or next week, Trump would win, but things can happen in three months. This campaign is remarkably unpredictable. We had an assassination attempt on Trump and Biden deciding to step down, so things can happen. Watch this space, I would say."
