Trump’s narrative for the US presidential election has been set. It is Keeping America Great versus violent social disorder driven by a far-left political agenda. It is so depressing and untrue; but highly effective. Incredibly he might just win, and Biden must raise his game. Lightness versus Darkness is unsurprisingly not enough. For Biden, Harris and the Democrats as a whole, this must be the fight of their lives.

As Edward Luce wrote in an excellent article in this week’s FT, there is no Republican Party anymore, just the Trump Party. Most former Republican grandees including the Bushes, Cheneys, Mitt Romney et al stayed away. This week was the humbling of the G.O.P. as speaker after speaker lauded Trump with no sense of healing a divided nation, the architect of which is often Trump himself. The low point in terms of speakers, excepting the almost Dynasty-esq parade of frankly weird Trump family members, had to be a couple now facing criminal charges as they pointed guns at peaceful black demonstrators to ‘protect their home’.

There were no policies in this Republican convention, just Trump’s Will. And his closing speech, set outrageously against the backdrop of the White House in front of an audience neither socially distancing nor wearing face masks, was a litany of misrepresentations. The impact of the coronavirus and its mismanagement was swept away; no mention was made about the legitimate concerns of the treatment of black people by some members of the police; lies were liberally thrown around.

But the threat to the suburbs from ‘chaos and anarchy’, a repeated theme in Trump’s speech, resonates and the drift to the Left of many Democrats is an uncomfortable reminder of politics in the UK when Corbyn’s Labour Party was swept aside by the albeit more moderate but populist Johnson.

An excellent US website to follow is RealClearPolitics.com. It makes sober reading. In top battle ground states at this time, Biden is 3.7% ahead. Clinton was 4.8% ahead in these swing states at the same stage in 2016. The betting odds only have Biden with a 52% chance of victory. In Pennsylvania, Biden has a 7% lead. But Jon Sopel, BBC’s North America Editor, reported this morning that it just doesn’t feel like that. What everyone is agreed on is that the polls are narrowing when anyone but Trump should be a shoe-in.

Biden and Harris need to get out there. They cannot allow themselves to be defined by Trump, boxed in by law and order issues. However frustrated demonstrators are, there is no excuse for looting, every incident of which pushes votes to Trump and the Democrats need to be clear on this. They also need clear, simple messages on the economy and tackling the coronavirus. They must avoid as much as possible talking excessively about identity politics. The vote also has to be got out quickly as some postal voting can start in just three weeks.

Literally anything could happen in the coming two months with three presidential debates ahead and two fairly elderly candidates having to navigate a campaign that would exhaust many younger, fitter politicians. The Democrats must take nothing for granted, not least because America and its allies cannot afford another four years of Trump who, as many moderate Republicans would agree, is the real architect of a dystopian future.

The US presidential stakes don’t get any higher than seeing off Trump and his hugely damaging presidency. Another 4 years of him will fatally wound the US as a global power, challenge the whole concept of democratic accountability and split this amazing nation in two.

Yet the polls that put Biden so comfortably ahead are just starting to narrow. We have been here before. In the face of Trump, Biden (Clinton) couldn’t possibly lose, Biden (Clinton) is consistently ahead in the polls, Biden (Clinton) is experienced and will focus on policies that will improve the lot of the less well off. Surely Biden (Clinton), despite some baggage, is a shoe-in…and yet…and yet…

Many say the VP choice doesn’t make an impact but this time it is different, and Senator Kamala Harris is the right pick. Biden will be 78 if he assumes office, Harris is 55. As a woman of colour, with tough prosecution credentials as California’s former attorney-general, she is hard to lay a glove on. She will energise the black vote in a racially divided nation and yet cannot be portrayed as simply soft on law and order issues. She is centrist and ruthless and that is what will really matter.

This will be the dirtiest campaign yet, the slug fest diluted only by the lockdown, and Biden needs an ambitious running mate who is unafraid and unperturbed by what lies ahead. She will use her role as VP candidate, and hopefully as VP, as a training ground for the top job and good for her. Trump has said Harris would have been his preferred choice as an opponent and describes her as ‘extraordinarily nasty’. Perfect.

Meanwhile the Trump presidency rolls on and voter suppression remains top of his agenda. The US Postal Service is now run by a major Trump donor who is reorganising it as we speak, and cost cutting with the consequence of slowing deliveries down in the face of the largest postal vote election in US history. Trump is attacking the Postal Service daily, saying it can’t cope and that voter fraud will consequently undermine the legitimacy of the election.

As for the pandemic, the death toll heads to 170,000 with over 5 million infections. A further stimulus package remains marooned in Congress. Trump floundered in an interview on HBO, referring to statistical graphs he clearly had no idea about. He is talking about banning Covid-infected Americans based overseas from returning home as part of his anti-immigration rhetoric, and compared Covid to the Spanish Flu of 1918 which apparently ‘ended World War II’ two decades later…Trump makes it up as he goes along and meanwhile people are dying.

So, the US Presidential Election is crucial domestically as well as for allies of the US abroad. Trump needs a heavy defeat so he can’t undermine the result and, if nothing else, to allow some space for the Republicans to regroup on more moderate ground (no mean feat when one considers some of the cleverer nationalist ideologues behind Trump).

Incredibly polls are starting to narrow despite Trump’s performance. Biden, at 77, is not a strong candidate and there is a long way to go. He needs an intelligent, ambitious Rottweiler at his side to keep those polls on side. She might not be the most likeable person but, in Kamala Harris as his running mate, Biden has made a shrewd choice.