This year’s Democratic National Convention has been an event filled with excitement and optimism, a far cry from where the Democrats were just weeks when Joe Biden was their presidential candidate.

With Kamala Harris as their nominee, the Democrats have gained support in the polls and with a big surge in donations and volunteers. A question lingers, however, about whether they can maintain their momentum, as Harris still hasn’t faced a major press conference or TV interview.

We’re joined on the podcast by former Australian ambassador to Washington, Joe Hockey, who’s been attending the convention in Chicago.

Asked who would be Harris’ match on the Australian political spectrum, Hockey says:

I think Kamala Harris has very similar views to Anthony Albanese, I think the difference is that America is a little more conservative than Australia, in some ways. And that’s not Australian ‘conservative’, that’s American ‘conservative’, believing in the right to bear arms, going to church, not once, but twice a week, and a fierce defence of state rights.

That’s a challenge for her, particularly coming from California.

On the mood in the convention room and how the race has changed since Biden dropped out:

There’s a combination of relief and unbridled enthusiasm. The relief comes from the fact that there was just total despair at the inability of Joe Biden to cut through, and people knew that he was not going to win.

It was like a death march to the polls. When he decided to go, there was this massive gasp of relief from the Democratic base but, at the same time, enthusiasm around a new energetic woman of colour who could beat Donald Trump.

On Trump’s campaign team, which has been unable to get a clean attack on Harris, Hockey says:

I know his senior team and a range of others, from Lindsey Graham through to a number of his own family are saying to him, focus on the issues. Narrow down your attack points, get back to the policy issues that matter. You know, the cost of living and immigration and so on. He can’t help himself. He just hasn’t got any discipline. He talks too long, he meanders, he’s obsessed with issues that are absolutely irrelevant to his vote or the voters he needs to win.

Hockey highlights why the American elections impact on countries like Australia:

Washington DC is the modern Rome, and everything that happens here has an impact in the far reaches of the earth and beyond and the Americans, despite everything you think, and you listen to the rubbish coming out of Paul Keating and Gareth Evans and so on. America is still the best friend we can possibly have, and we want to keep that friend. I mean, they’re blood relatives and their values, not identical to ours, but […] they’re fingers on the same hand.

And so if we can influence them in a positive way, […] if we can do that, then we’re making the lives of Australians much better every day.