John Carl and other rioters surrounded police officers near a set of stairs leading to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to a recent criminal complaint. When officers tried to move Carl back, he resisted and grabbed an officer’s baton, federal prosecutors said.

Carl breached the Capitol that afternoon and entered the office of Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the complaint said. He told a friend that police officers prevented further entry into the building, prosecutors said, so he exited the Capitol and later returned to his North Carolina home.

A few years later, Carl became a police officer in Pinetops, N.C., about 50 miles east of Raleigh.

However, Carl was suspended from his job after his arrest Thursday for his alleged actions during the Jan. 6 insurrection, Pinetops’s outside attorney, J. Brian Pridgen, said in a statement to The Washington Post. Carl, 41, was charged with a felony count of civil disorder and misdemeanors of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly conduct in a Capitol building; and parading, picketing and demonstrating in a Capitol building. If convicted of the felony, he could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.

Carl declined to comment on the allegations when reached by The Post, saying in a text message that “someday hopefully” he can share his side of the story. A public defender will represent him, according to court documents, but Carl said he hasn’t been assigned representation yet.

He isn’t the first person to work in law enforcement and be among the more than 1,488 people who have been charged in relation to the Jan. 6 riot. A former California police chief was sentenced to 11 years in prison in December on felony charges related to his involvement in the riot, and a former North Carolina police officer was sentenced to more than a year in prison in September for her role in breaching the Capitol.

The FBI investigated Carl after his friend reported himself to authorities for his involvement in the riot, according to the criminal complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for D.C. His friend, whom the U.S. attorney’s office for D.C. declined to identify, told investigators on Jan. 25, 2021, that he had picked up Carl to drive him to D.C. earlier that month, prosecutors said.

After attending President Donald Trump’s rally near the National Mall on Jan. 6, 2021, Carl’s friend told investigators that he and Carl walked to the Capitol, where people were entering the building through windows they had broken, the complaint said.

In February 2021, the FBI spoke with Carl, who said there wasn’t much “swinging or throwing” where he was standing near the Capitol but that there were “guys putting their shoulder in” as police officers holding riot shields pushed back the crowd, according to the complaint. It’s unclear why Carl wasn’t arrested at the time.

Body-camera footage from the D.C. police later showed Carl, wearing a maroon and gray jacket and a mask, standing in front of police officers with other rioters on the west side of the Capitol, prosecutors said. The footage showed Carl raising his arms to push back against officers’ attempts to move him and grabbing an officer’s arm and baton.

Footage from the Capitol Police showed Carl and his friend entering the Capitol’s Senate wing entrance door about an hour later before Carl walked farther into the building, prosecutors said. Carl’s friend told investigators that he and Carl ultimately exited through the same door they had entered.

More than two years later — in November — Carl, who said he had previously worked in real estate, graduated from an eastern North Carolina community college’s basic law enforcement training, according to a news release from the college at the time. Later that month, Carl was introduced at a board of commissioners meeting in Pinetops as a “recently graduated Trainee/Cadet,” according to the meeting’s minutes.

The Pinetops Police Department and Pinetops Mayor Brenda Harrell directed requests for comment to Pridgen, who said in a statement that Carl was hired by the department June 5, 2023.

“At the time of his hiring and during his employment, the Town of Pinetops had no knowledge of Officer Carl’s possible involvement” in the riot, Pridgen said. “Based on the charges brought by the FBI, Officer Carl has been suspended pending an investigation.”

For as long as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been running for president, Democrats have cast him as a stalking horse for Donald Trump. But Kennedy has consistently denied playing the role of spoiler. When a Kennedy campaign official gave a detailed presentation laying out how he could help Trump, the Kennedy campaign distanced itself from her.

But now Kennedy’s vice-presidential running mate, Nicole Shanahan, has dropped any pretense. She indicated in a new podcast interview that the Kennedy campaign would prefer to help Trump than see Vice President Kamala Harris win the presidency. And she even floated the idea that she and Kennedy could drop out of the race to assist in that outcome.

Speaking on the “Impact Theory” podcast, Shanahan laid out two paths forward for the Kennedy campaign: trying to get enough votes to form a more robust third party, or dropping out to help Trump.

“There’s two options that we’re looking at,” Shanahan said. “One is staying in, forming that new party. But we run the risk of a Kamala Harris and [Tim] Walz presidency, because we draw … somehow more votes from Trump.

“Or we walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump, and … explain to our base why we’re making this decision.”

Kennedy’s campaign didn’t directly comment on whether it agreed with Shanahan’s comments. It instead pointed to an X post from Kennedy that said he was “willing to talk with leaders of any political party to further the goals I have served for 40 years in my career and in this campaign.”

Shanahan’s unvarnished comments are the latest indicator of a fading and potentially dying campaign. But as much as that, they feed into Democrats’ longstanding allegations about Kennedy’s true motivations.

Shanahan’s comments also come, it bears emphasizing, shortly after it became evident that Kennedy was suddenly hurting Trump.

Shanahan said generally positive things about Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, despite Kennedy’s having said back in April that he “oppose[d] Donald Trump and all he stands for.”

She also played up the idea of Kennedy serving in the Trump administration and even of her falling back on a run for office in California. (Trump responded to Shanahan’s comments by telling CNN that he would entertain giving Kennedy a job in exchange for Kennedy’s dropping out and endorsing him.)

Needless to say, these are not generally the kinds of things you hear from a serious campaign that is full speed ahead. Merely airing them publicly is likely to give would-be supporters pause; one donor set to hold a fundraiser for Kennedy told ABC News he is now canceling the event.

Kennedy’s campaign has seen its support wane in recent months. And he was dealt a sharp blow when Harris joined the race, reducing the ranks of voters who dislike both major-party nominees (“double haters”). While Kennedy once polled in the mid- to high teens — some of the best numbers for a non-major-party candidate since Ross Perot in the 1990s — he’s now averaging about 5 percent.

The other big shift has been in who he is pulling from. He previously drew about evenly from the Democratic and Republican tickets, despite his and his family’s ties to the Democratic Party and his earlier Democratic primary campaign.

But more recent surveys suggest the third-party factor has shifted against Trump. Harris actually gains ground when you include third-party and independent candidates, and Kennedy in particular draws significantly more from Trump.

One survey showed Kennedy supporters preferred Trump to Harris more than 2-to-1 when asked to choose. Another showed Kennedy pulling 23 percent of Republican-leaning independents, compared to just 8 percent of Democratic-leaning ones.

All of which suggests that if Kennedy does drop out, it could help Trump on the margins by pushing those Trump-inclined voters toward him.

(It’s worth noting that most major polls now are straight head-to-heads between Trump and Harris, so we have a pretty good sense for what a Kennedy-less race looks like.)

Shanahan, for her part, suggests that the motivation to help Trump has come about relatively recently. She blamed Democrats for stifling Kennedy’s campaign by keeping him off the debate stage and launching legal action against his campaign. More conspiratorially, she suggested they were “manipulating polls” somehow and “even planted insiders into our campaign to disrupt it and to create actual legal issues for us.”

“They have, unfortunately, turned us into a spoiler,” Shanahan said. She added that “we are taking a very serious look at making sure that the people that have corrupted our fair and free democracy do not end up in office in November.”

That stated reason would be easier to square if not for the fact that Trump tried to overturn an election based upon lies and distortions. And just two weeks ago, Kennedy reached out to this supposedly nefarious and underhanded Harris campaign to discuss trading an endorsement of her for an administration job.

The Kennedy campaign seems to realize that it is listing badly, and they’re suddenly in the bargaining phase.

The Harris campaign had almost no motivation to cut such a deal. But Trump suddenly does.

CHICAGO — Shelia Smoot runs the Alabama delegation sign choreography operation like a drill sergeant.

“Jill is coming up — the ‘Jill’ signs please,” Smoot said, turning toward her state’s delegation in seats of the United Center and flashing a forest green sign bearing a single word — “JILL” — in honor of the first lady. “The ‘Jill’ signs! Give it the ‘Jill’ signs!”

Then, as Jill Biden took the stage at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night, Smoot and her fellow Alabama delegates joined the entire arena in a massive display of sign-waving and waggling.

“JILL.” “JILL.” “JILL.”

As the Democratic convention opened in Chicago this week, placards emblazoned with various slogans appeared, seemingly effortlessly, as the backdrop to a long procession of speakers.

Pro-America talk? Blue-and-red “USA” signs flooded the arena. A surprise appearance by Vice President Kamala Harris? Her “We Fight, We Win.” slogan materialized, lofted high. And when United Auto Workers chief Shawn Fain took the stage? A sea of “UNION YES!” signs appeared.

The synchronized sign-waving was the result of a meticulously planned operation that started weeks before the convention — when preapproved designs needed to be sent to a single longtime vendor — and continued up until the very end of the first evening, as nearly 300 volunteers marched through the aisles of the United Center, passing out the appropriate signs at the correct moment.

A “Floor Visibility” team helped to coordinate the use of signage throughout the convention hall, from printing, assembling and distributing the signs to coordinating just which signs the delegates would lift — and when, said one person familiar with the operation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share private details about the convention’s inner workings.

The same person has been leading the signage effort for Democratic conventions for nearly three decades — since Bill Clinton’s reelection in 1996 — and this year’s operation features tens of thousands of signs, including some that were assembled by union workers at IUOE Local 399 in Chicago, this person added.

“It comes from the back, floats to the main floor, then it comes to each delegation and we pass them out,” Smoot explained, gesturing at volunteers clad in neon yellow safety vests making their way down the floor of the United Center, with the latest placards discreetly concealed in large plastic bags.

Smoot then pointed to the white landline phones that are attached to each delegation’s signpost, adding that the delegation will periodically get a call on “the Bat Phone,” explaining which speaker is on deck and which sign to wave.

“We don’t know who is coming up until the Bat Phone rings,” she said.

Other delegations were slightly less organized, relying more on instinct than official directive.

“There’s no directions or anything like that,” said Ryan Middleton, a delegate from Maryland who is running for Prince George’s County Council, early in the evening as he flipped through the roughly half-dozen cardboard signs in front of him. “It’s kind of intuition.”

Middleton explained that when Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr — who just led the U.S. men’s basketball team to an Olympic gold medal victory over France this month in Paris — took the stage, the crowd simply knew the moment called for the “USA” signs.

“He won a gold medal, so we did ‘USA,’” Middleton said. “‘USA’ has been the default one.”

Similarly, Washington state delegate Heather Young said she chose from her heap of signs based on “whatever mood I’m in, whatever feels right for the moment.”

“I like the ‘UNION YES!’” Young said, explaining that both her father and grandfather were longtime union members and railroad workers. “I like the ‘We Fight, We Win.’ And I like the ‘USA.’”

Another benefit, she added: “We get to keep them. A lot of people back home would love to be here but can’t, and they say, ‘Bring me something.’”

As Monday evening wore on, however, the sign choreography became more elaborate, complete with surprise signs.

A little before 10 p.m., right as Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear was set to take the stage, the Alabama “Bat Phone” rang. A delegate picked it up, listened carefully and then whispered a message to Smoot, who relayed it to her entire delegation.

“If there is a protest when Joe Biden comes out, we do the ‘USA’ sign,” she told the group. “Only if there is a protest, we flip this sign.”

Then, turning to a reporter, she added, “We’re supposed to be discreet.”

In fact, a different set of signs did come in handy a bit later in the evening in a another part of the arena: When protesters unveiled a homemade “Stop Arming Israel” banner, the crowd quickly blocked them with their pro-Biden signage.

Of course, even the most carefully laid plans can go awry, and the convention’s inaugural day brought a few hiccups. There were rumors that a large number of the night’s final batch of signs — “WE JOE” lollipop signs on sticks — were still stuck on the East Coast as of Monday morning and might not make it to Chicago in time.

And as President Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley, began introducing her father as the evening’s final act, the volunteers were a little slow blanketing the arena with the lollipop signs.

“There’s been a snafu,” Smoot said, glancing down into the crowd already bouncing their “WE JOE” signs up and down. “We don’t have our signs.”

But volunteers, carrying bushels of signs in their arms, raced up and down the United Center steps, passing them out as if running with the Olympic torch.

“Here we go! Here we go!” Smoot said as the sticks made their way to her delegation and she helped disperse them. “Go! Go! Go! C’mon, Alabama — Let’s do it!”

Lowering her voice, she explained: “I was like, ‘Where the hell are our signs?’ We’ll let you slide on the other ones — this one we’re not skipping.”

Then, as if to make up for lost time, Smoot grabbed two lollipop signs for herself — one for each hand — and hoisted them high.

Kara Voght contributed to this report.

CHICAGO — Patriotism is cool at this year’s Democratic National Convention.

Delegates wear suits adorned with stars and stripes, dresses with American flag patterns, and blouses featuring bald eagles or the Pledge of Allegiance. As attendees waved red, white and blue signs from their seats and chanted “U-S-A” on Monday night, country musician Mickey Guyton sang: “We got the same stars, the same stripes. Just wanna live that good life. Ain’t we all, ain’t we all American?”

The debate over which political party is more patriotic goes back decades. Republicans have often claimed the American flag as their own and argued that it represents conservative America, or signals alignment with conservative beliefs. But as they rally for the Democratic presidential ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Democratic speakers and delegates are sporting Old Glory and other national symbols in what they say is a display of their patriotism and values — and a counterweight to former president Donald Trump’s use of the flag as a partisan symbol.

As delegates made their way to the convention floor at the United Center on Monday, Washington state delegates Ted Jones and Lora de la Portilla wore bright white cowboy hats as well as red, white and blue sashes that read “Cowboy Harris” — outfits created as a nod to the “Cowboy Carter” sash that Beyoncé wears on the cover of her recent country music album. Jones and De La Portilla said they were looking forward to seeing Democrats take “back the flag, the patriotism.”

“We’re taking back rural. We’re taking back country. They can’t claim it,” Jones said of Republicans. “Just cause a truck goes by with an American flag, we’ve got to stop going: ‘There goes a Trumper.’”

In 2023, a Gallup poll found that although 60 percent of Republicans expressed extreme pride in being American, only 29 percent of Democrats did. An April poll from Ipsos found that 92 percent of Republicans had a favorable opinion of the American flag, while 77 percent of Democrats did.

But Americans’ feelings about their country have tended to fluctuate based on whether their party occupies the Oval Office. A 2019 Gallup poll, for example, found that the percentage of Democrats who said then that they were extremely proud to be American sank from 56 percent in 2013 during the Obama era to 22 percent in 2019, deep in the Trump years. That same poll found that among Republicans, pride in the country rose from 68 to 76 percent between 2015 and 2019.

Democrats in recent years have “pointed out a lot of reasons why people shouldn’t be proud of America, and shouldn’t feel patriotic,” said Peter Loge, director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. But Democrats in Chicago are “making the case that, for whatever its flaws, there is a lot to be proud of and that you can be both a proud Democrat and a proud American,” Loge added.

Also in the arena, Umi Grigsby, an Illinois Democrat, walked around with a handful of “USA” posters. Democratic convention staffers handed them out to audience members throughout the program, papering the hall in red, white and blue. The Liberian immigrant, who became a citizen in 2017, said those three letters represent her, and the symbolism of her carrying them around during the Democratic convention doesn’t escape her.

“It’s interesting how there’s one party that seems to feel like they own patriotism and own the U.S. flag, when actually there’s another party that’s saying, like, ‘You can all come here and we can all, you know, succeed here and it’s for all of us,’” she said.

Across the hall, Suzi Larson, a South Dakota delegate, waited in line fully decked out in red, white and blue. Her shawl was emblazoned with the American flag. Her shirt read, “In God We Trust.” Her fingernails were painted red, her toenails blue with stars. Larson said that while many Democrats shied away from showing their patriotism during the Trump administration, the love for country “has always been there.”

“It’s been tarnished, but it didn’t go away,” she said.

The Democratic Party is presenting a message that there is “nothing more American than freedom,” Democratic National Committee spokesman Abhi Rahman said.

“There’s no reason for us to be afraid of using those symbols, because those symbols are our symbols and there’s nobody that’s more proud to be American than we are,” Rahman said.

Democrats at the convention have sought to claim other symbols as their own, too. Michael Welsh, an alternate delegate from Alaska, walked around the convention Monday wearing a red hat that looked like Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” cap from afar. His, however, read: “Make Lying Wrong Again.”

Welsh, an Army veteran, said he was horrified to see symbols and messaging often associated with the military be misused on Jan. 6, 2021, the day a pro-Trump mob — some of whom Trump has glorified as “patriots” — broke into the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential win. That, he said, was “a real affront to our service.”

“It’s time for veterans, especially Democratic veterans, to reclaim that mantle of patriotism, especially in light of the appalling statements Donald Trump has made” about veterans and service members, Welsh said.

Democrats have also sported camouflage-patterned hats around the convention arena. Almost immediately after Harris announced Walz — a lifelong hunter, fisherman and gun owner — as her running mate, the campaign began selling camo hats with the Harris-Walz logo in bright orange.

Camouflage patterns have a long history in the U.S. military, hunting culture and Republican campaign merchandise. The Harris-Walz hats — which sold out in 30 minutes, according to the campaign — bear a striking similarity to merchandise sold by “Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” pop star Chappell Roan.

MILWAUKEE — Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz took a detour from Chicago to rally with more than 15,000 supporters here Tuesday in an effort to channel the momentum from the Democratic National Convention into votes in a critical battleground state.

“As the generation of Americans before us who led the fight for freedom, the baton is in our hands,” Harris said, one day after President Joe Biden delivered a convention speech that was designed to pass the torch to her. “We carry the baton.”

The lively event took place at the Fiserv Forum, the same venue where Republicans gathered to nominate Trump at their own party confab last month. About 90 miles to the south, thousands of other Democrats gathered at the United Center in Chicago for the second day of their convention, featuring influential leaders such as former president Barack Obama, former first lady Michelle Obama and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Harris used her remarks to zero in on the issue of abortion, criticizing Republican nominee and former president Donald Trump for telling CBS News in an interview Monday that he had “no regrets” about appointing Supreme Court justices that voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“I do believe, you know, bad behavior should result in a consequence,” she said. “Well, we will make sure that he does face a consequence — and that will be at the ballot box in November.”

As she has done in previous events, Harris spoke about abortion within the broader context of fundamental freedoms that she said are under “full on attack” by Trump and his Republican allies.

Harris’s speech was interrupted multiple times by rowdy applause and cheering, including chants of “We’re not going back!” and “U-S-A!” echoing the celebratory atmosphere at the convention in Chicago. A pro-Palestinian demonstrator was removed after shouting out in protest during Harris’s remarks.

Both arenas at times had the feel of a music concert, with attendees dancing and cheering for hours. In Milwaukee and Chicago, attendees wore matching light-up bracelets similar to the ones at Taylor Swift concerts. The Fiserv Forum, which has a capacity of about 18,000 for concerts, was largely full, though some of the seats were covered up with black curtains. Ahead of Harris’s arrival, attendees sang along as the DJ played hits like “Sweet Caroline” and “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”

Supporters at the Milwaukee event watched some of the convention programming on video screens inside the arena, including the nationwide roll call vote that included surprise celebrity appearances. Attendees in the United Center viewed some of Harris’s speech in Milwaukee after the roll call.

It is rare for a presidential candidate to stage a large political rally in another state at the same time as their nominating convention is taking place, but Walz and Harris sought to take advantage of the proximity to a critical state ahead of their acceptance speeches in Chicago on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.

The decision to hold the event in Wisconsin also reflected the truncated timeline for Harris’s campaign for the presidency, which began after Biden abruptly ended his reelection bid on July 21. Both Harris and Walz have noted the dwindling number of days they have to win over voters and pledged to campaign aggressively over the coming weeks. They also sought to undercut Trump’s fixation on crowd size by simultaneously filling two arenas while drawing a sharp contrast with the Republican convention in the same venue.

“Trust me, Milwaukee, a hell of a lot can change in four weeks,” Walz told the crowd, noting Democrats’ improved fortunes since the GOP convention last month. “Not only do we have massive energy at our convention, we’ve got a hell of a lot more energy at where they had their convention, right here.”

Trump has also ramped up his travel schedule, with plans to visit multiple battleground states this week. During an event with police in Michigan on Tuesday, he attacked Harris over crime, asserting that he would be a better advocate for law enforcement than the onetime prosecutor.

“People don’t know the real Kamala,” Trump said, calling her “so far left that nobody can even imagine.”

Trump plans to hold events in North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada in the coming days as the Democratic convention wraps up.

Harris’s event marked her third visit to Wisconsin since she launched a presidential bid one month ago, a sign of the importance of the Midwest battleground. Both candidates see Wisconsin and its 10 electoral votes as critical to most pathways to victory, and Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, also have made frequent stops in the state. Vance remarked on the central role of the state in the campaign Tuesday during an event focused on crime in Kenosha, Wis.

“I basically live in Wisconsin now,” he said, adding that it “may be very well be the most important state in the country.”

Biden won the state by about 20,000 votes over Trump, who had carried the state by a similarly narrow margin in 2016. Polling indicates the race is neck-and-neck, with Harris ahead of Trump by 2 points, according to The Washington Post’s polling averages.

Wisconsin is also home to an important Senate race, with incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) set to face off against Republican businessman Eric Hovde in a contest that could help determine control of the chamber.

“Time and again, my home state has determined the political fortune of our country, and this year will be no different,” Baldwin wrote Tuesday in a piece for MSNBC, noting that the Badger State was the only state in which the winner prevailed by less than 1 percentage point in the last two races.

Democrats are hoping strong turnout in cities like Milwaukee and its suburbs will propel them to victory in November, even as Trump has been counting on a surge of rural votes to remain competitive.

CHICAGO — When President Joe Biden delivered his valedictory address at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night, he invoked the need to “preserve our democracy,” “vote for democracy,” and confront the “clear and present threats to our very democracy.”

“We saved democracy in 2020,” he declared, “and now we must save it again in 2024.”

The theme of existential stakes for the American experiment was in keeping with one that Biden has hammered throughout the campaign. But his rhetorical emphasis hasn’t been embraced by the woman he endorsed to take his place on the Democratic ticket: Vice President Kamala Harris. Rather, she has shifted the focus, speaking far less about democracy and far more about freedom.

Harris on Monday took the stage for a surprise appearance to the rousing beat of Beyoncé’s “Freedom,” her campaign’s unofficial anthem. She was preceded onstage by a nearly three-minute hype video set to the same song, with the narrator promising “freedom from control, freedom from extremism and fear.” Together, the night’s speakers referenced “freedom” more than 100 times. And on Wednesday, the convention’s entire program will be dedicated to the theme “A Fight for Our Freedoms.”

Since Harris took over as the Democrats’ presidential nominee, much about the campaign’s approach to defeating Donald Trump has changed, from the trappings of its rallies to the size of its fundraising hauls to its tone on social media.

But the rhetorical evolution is among the most significant, redefining the stakes of the race and giving Democrats a new rallying cry that political practitioners say is far more likely to resonate with voters.

At 100 campaign events since launching his reelection in April 2023, Biden referenced “democracy” 386 times and “freedom” about 175 times, according to a Washington Post analysis of his speeches. By comparison, in eight campaign rallies since he has dropped out, Harris referenced “freedom” 48 times and “democracy” just nine.

Where Biden ominously warned that Trump posed a fundamental danger to the future of America’s constitutional republic, Harris has leaned into a term that better fits the more upbeat and optimistic tone she has sought to strike. It can also be applied to a range of issues with a more tangible impact on people’s day-to-day lives, including abortion, education, gun control and the economy.

“I always say people sitting around the table talking about democracy. It’s probably because they don’t have to worry about the food they have on the table,” said David Axelrod, a veteran Democratic strategist whose messaging helped propel Barack Obama to the presidency.

Biden believed the call to defend democracy would motivate voters to choose him over Trump, as they did in 2020. The message was also integral to Democrats’ successful 2022 midterm election, when they fended off Republican candidates in key state races who repeated Trump’s falsehoods denying the results of the 2020 race.

But in the lead-up to Biden’s July withdrawal, polls showed him significantly lagging and the democracy message not cutting through. In a spring Post poll of voters in six states that Biden narrowly won in 2020, more people said they trusted Trump to handle threats to democracy than Biden. Most said the guardrails in place to protect democratic institutions would hold even if a dictator tried to take over the country.

Celinda Lake, a longtime Democratic pollster who did polling for Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, said that “democracy” polled well with older Democrats but not with younger ones “who really don’t think we have a democracy.”

“The freedom message is just broader, more forward-looking,” she said.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said Harris’s campaign had offered “no solutions or policy ideas to fix the problems America faces today. All they have are nonsensical slogans and feel-good platitudes that are devoid of substance and, ultimately, reality.”

Trump, who has said he would be a dictator on “day one,” has repeatedly argued that he is the true defender of democracy because he is fighting prosecutions that amount to “election interference.” He has also falsely called Harris replacing Biden a “coup.” The argument has clouded the question of what democracy — a term that leaves much to the imagination — even means.

“Democracy has almost become trivialized, even though it’s hardly a trivial issue,” Axelrod said.

Harris still talks about democracy, but not nearly as much as the president, even as she has amped up the centrality of freedom — a word often more associated with the political right — as a rallying cry.

“The vice president’s fundamental point is the same as those who invoke ‘democracy,’ but she believes discussing it in terms of fundamental freedoms makes it tangible in terms of what Americans stand to lose under a Trump presidency,” said Brian Fallon, a Harris campaign spokesman.

Freedom, as Democrats have increasingly used it, can mean saving democracy from would-be autocrats. But it can also refer to protecting reproductive rights, same-sex marriage, access to affordable health care, a choice of what to read at school and safety from gun violence.

“Voters respond to freedom as a core American value,” said Emma Brown, executive director of Giffords, a gun safety advocacy group. “When we can talk about [gun violence] as a freedom issue, we get near universal agreement about it.”

“We share this core value of more freedom, not less, and for too long, we’ve allowed the far right to claim they are the party of freedom,” Brown said.

For decades, Republicans have adopted freedom as their rallying cry, amplified in recent years by the 2010 tea party movement’s “Don’t Tread on Me” slogan and the 2015 creation of the “Freedom Caucus” by a group of far-right GOP members of Congress.

Anat Shenker-Osorio, a liberal communications consultant, has been urging Democrats to reclaim the term “freedom” for several years. In focus groups she’s conducted with disaffected Democrats and swing voters, Shenker-Osorio said people respond more favorably on issues such as voter suppression or gerrymandering when they are “framed through the language of freedom than through the lens of democracy.”

“Where freedom sort of lives inside of the body, democracy is a more abstract idea,” she said.

After the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending the constitutional right to abortion, Democrats began using freedom more in their messaging. Josh Shapiro, who ran for Pennsylvania governor that year against a Republican who had helped orchestrate efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, was among the earliest adopters.

“It’s not freedom to tell women what they’re allowed to do with their bodies. That’s not freedom,” said Shapiro, who won his race, in a campaign speech that went viral. “It’s not freedom to say you can work a 40-hour workweek, but you can’t be a member of a union. That’s not freedom. And it sure as hell isn’t freedom to say you can go vote, but he gets to pick the winner. That’s not freedom.”

Shapiro, who was a finalist to be Harris’s vice president and will speak Wednesday night, held a “real freedom” happy hour on the first day of the convention. In a brief interview afterward, Shapiro said freedom “is not theoretical. It’s quantitative. Donald Trump took away freedoms and is promising to take away more, and Kamala Harris is promising to expand our freedom.”

Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota and a former Democratic congressman, said the rhetorical pivot is part of a broader shift in mood for the party that coincides with the change in presidential candidates. “The messaging is a little more electric,” he said. “People do operate on fear, but they volunteer out of joy.”

Down-ballot Democrats have followed Harris’s lead.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.), the first House Democrat to call for Biden to step aside this summer, said he’s started emphasizing freedom more.

“Democracy, as vital as it is, may not have been reaching some of the undecided voters,” Doggett said. “Freedom, people can identify with. They don’t want other people telling them how they have to live their lives.”

That’s not to say democracy has disappeared from the conversation on the campaign trail or in Chicago. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), during his remarks Monday night, told the story of the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and warned that Trump would “terminate our Constitution” if elected for another term.

“Welcome to the democracy convention,” he said. Then he added: “Welcome to the freedom convention.”

Morse reported from Washington.

CHICAGO — Welcome to The Campaign Moment, your guide to the biggest developments in the 2024 election, now featuring more Lil Jon on C-SPAN.

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The big moment

The Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night included an energetic, DJ-spun roll call vote of the states (where rapper Lil Jon stole the show for his home state of Georgia), both Obamas and a number of Republicans prosecuting the case against Donald Trump.

As a reminder, I’ll be with you every night this week when the program ends, offering my takeaways from the convention. Here are Tuesday’s.

1. The Obamas look to bestow their movement on Harris

Monday featured some reminders of less-proud electoral times for Democrats, with the headliners including 2016 runner-up Hillary Clinton and the recently nudged-aside President Joe Biden.

Tuesday was devoted to bringing back that winning feeling — to reclaiming the ethos of the Democrats’ proudest years of the 21st century, the Obama era. Indeed, the Obamas effectively painted Vice President Kamala Harris as their political heir, commandeering their movement. And it was about as far from subtle as possible.

Both Barack Obama and Michelle Obama spoke and wasted no time in seeking to rekindle the themes for which the Obama era was so well known.

“We have a familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep for far too long,” Michelle Obama began. “You know what I’m talking about: It’s the contagious power of hope.”

She added: “Hope is making a comeback.”

Barack Obama later spoke and began: “I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling fired up. I am feeling ready to go.”

He quickly added: “I am feeling hopeful.”

He later pulled out: “Do not boo. Vote.”

When an audience member said of Harris, “Yes she can,” Obama responded, “Yes she can.”

And perhaps most strikingly, he alluded to how “this convention has always been pretty good to kids with funny names who believe in a country where anything is possible” — the idea being that Harris shares those characteristics with him.

It’s reductive to regard these speeches as mere retreads of past Obama themes; both Obamas made their own case for Harris and against Trump and got huge responses. Michelle Obama’s repeated pleas that Democrats “do something” rather than sit back and complain landed with particular force, and she went after Trump more strongly than she has in the past. Barack Obama played up Harris as an ally of and advocate for regular Americans, and he painted Trump as a whiner consumed with his own grievances.

But Democrats are benefiting so much right now from their markedly improving “vibes.” And Tuesday was mostly about keeping that going — with an assist from the past.

Now it’s about whether Harris can take that baton and actually run with it, living up to the hype the Obamas sought to juice.

2. Republicans delivered strong Trump rebukes

The program on Tuesday night made a point to feature Republicans, former Republicans and former Trump allies who are now backing Harris.

Some of the more notable testimonials:

• “The View” co-host Ana Navarro, who hosted the session, compared Trump to Latin American dictators including Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega (for calling the media the “enemy of the people”), Cuba’s Fidel Castro (for using office to enrich himself and his family) and Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro (for refusing to accept legitimate election results). Trump has recently suggested without any evidence that Harris will lead the country to communism.
• Former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham described Trump as having “no empathy, no morals and no fidelity to the truth.”
• Mesa, Ariz., Mayor John Giles (R) said that he felt out of place, but that “I feel more at home here than in today’s Republican Party. The Grand Old Party has been kidnapped by extremists and devolved into a cult — the cult of Donald Trump. … John McCain’s Republican Party is gone, and we don’t owe a damn thing to what’s been left behind.”

3. Harris’s spouse plays up their blended family

Harris got what’s likely to be her most significant character-witness speech of the week Tuesday night from her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff.

And Emhoff’s comments about the challenges involved in their blended family were a particularly potent moment in a Democratic convention that is focused on inclusivity.

“Those of you who belong to blended families know that they can be a little complicated,” Emhoff said. “But as soon as our kids started calling her ‘Mamala,’ I knew we’d be okay.”

“Ella [his daughter] calls us a three-headed parenting machine. Kamala and Kerstin [Emhoff], thank you both,” Emhoff added, shouting out his ex-wife, who was in the crowd.

He referenced a story about a time when Harris appeared deeply focused on something, and he assumed it was her job as vice president — potentially an international crisis.

“I could see she was focused, and all I knew was that it must be something important,” Emhoff said. “And it turns out it was: Ella had called her. That’s Kamala.”

4. Bernie Sanders made another notable Gaza mention

For the second straight night, the war in Gaza got a fleeting but high-profile mention on the stage — as demonstrations related to the war have fallen short of organizers’ hopes.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), toward the end of his speech, said, “We must end this horrific war in Gaza, bring home the hostages and demand an immediate cease-fire.”

The comments came a day after President Joe Biden spoke about his work toward a peace deal and added, “Those protesters out in the street, they have a point; a lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) had also insisted that Harris was “working tirelessly to secure a cease-fire in Gaza and bringing hostages home.”

Sanders’s comments, notably, were less of an endorsement of Harris’s approach. He argued last week that people shouldn’t withhold votes from Harris over the issue — because Trump was worse — but he also said that he aimed to “move Harris if she becomes president” — apparently away from Israel.

Few speakers have broached the issue. But it’s clear the convention feels the need to address this elephant in the room and assure the protesters that they are being heard.

5. A bona fide big-tent (and ironic) moment

The convention this week has largely been defined by efforts to set aside differences and enthusiastically work as one.

And rarely was that in such stark relief as in the middle of Tuesday’s program, when things took an ironic turn.

Shortly after 8:30 a.m. Central time, Sanders echoed his long-standing talking points on combating the influence of billionaires. “Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections, including primary elections,” Sanders said.

The very next speaker: Billionaire Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), who spent $350 million of his fortune winning his two campaigns — including a competitive 2018 Democratic primary.

“Take it from an actual billionaire, Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity,” Pritzker said, about 10 minutes after Sanders’s comment.

Take a moment to read:

• “In biggest speech of her career, Harris hopes to tell her story first” (The Washington Post)
• “Kamala Harris allies say plan to ban ‘price gouging’ has been misconstrued” (The Washington Post)
• “The ‘OG’s for Kamala’ raise a glass and enjoy a little I-told-you-so” (The Washington Post)
• “Trump’s AI fakes of Harris and Swift aren’t meant to fool you” (The Washington Post)
• “The DNC Is a Big Smiling Mess” (Atlantic)