Symone Sanders-Townsend Tells PEOPLE What to Watch for at DNC: Exclusive

The 2024 Democratic National Convention, which begins on Monday, Aug. 19, is set to be a historic event that will see President Joe Biden effectively hand the keys to the Democratic Party over to Vice President Kamala Harris only four weeks after he abandoned his reelection bid.

Harris, who chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Aug. 6, has built unprecedented momentum in polling since taking Biden’s place on the ticket in a last-minute swap, but the convention is where she will need to fully establish who she is as a candidate and how she differs from her boss.

Symone Sanders-Townsend, who hosts MSNBC’s The Weekend, worked as Harris’ chief spokesperson and senior adviser during the vice president’s first year in office, and served as a senior adviser to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign before that.

Though she is not advising the Democratic campaign this time around, she’ll be curious to see how her former boss navigates one of the highest-stakes events of the election cycle.

Below, Sanders-Townsend explains the four main things she’s looking out for at the Democratic National Convention, which ends on Thursday, Aug. 22.

1. The Big Stage

One thing that I am watching for at the convention is just who gets the spots on the big stage every evening. People may have forgotten, but the Democratic National Convention is where then-Sen. Barack Obama first gave his big speech in 2004, and it was a speech that catapulted him onto the national stage and onto people’s radar. It was that speech that people said, “Oh, is he going to run for president?” It was also then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris who spoke on the 2012 convention stage.

So, the convention stages are oftentimes where the up-and-coming talent is, if you will, and who gets spotlighted is at the discretion of the nominee. And so who Kamala Harris decides to put on the stage is one of the things that I’m watching for.

2. Kamala Coalition

What is the Kamala Coalition? That’s the second thing I’m looking for. It’s not Biden’s coalition and Biden’s coalition wasn’t Obama’s, and hers won’t be Obama’s. Specifically, I think her coalition is going to be unique to her. It might be a melding of both. But we are going to start to see what that coalition looks like as this convention unfolds.

This is the biggest stage, frankly, that Harris is going to have prior to Election Day. The only bigger stage after that, or almost as big, would be this first debate with Donald Trump, and so this is her opportunity to showcase the coalition and it’s the first showing of the party truly in the image of her vision. So I’m looking to see what that looks like.

3. Theme

The third thing I’m watching for is, what’s the theme that emerges from this convention? What usually happens is you come out of the convention — especially for the Democrats, because the Democratic National Convention is usually toward the end of the summer — with a theme, and that theme and message carries you through the general election. 

So is the theme of this convention going to be, ‘we’re not going back’? Is the theme ‘win the future’? What is the theme? And then, how is that woven throughout all of the programming, not just in the evening, but throughout the day.

It’s my understanding that there will be content creators broadcasting on social media not just in the evening, but throughout the daytime events as well. How is Kamala Harris’ vision of the Democratic Party apparatus showing up throughout all of those things? Because ‘we’re not going back’ is a campaign call that is specific to not wanting Trumpism. That is not a vision, per se. That is a campaign slogan. So what’s the vision? What’s the tagline of the convention?

4. Joe Biden’s Baton

The fourth thing I’m watching for is how the Democratic Party apparatus celebrates President Joe Biden and honors his accomplishments throughout the convention, and how President Biden passes the baton Monday. Notably Biden didn’t get his opportunity to deliver a big convention speech when he won the nomination because of COVID. When he spoke in 2020, there were maybe 15 people in the room and he did it from Delaware. He wasn’t in Milwaukee where the convention was held.

Monday, the first night of the Democrats’ convention is the party’s opportunity to honor Biden for his decades of service to the country and commemorate his truly consequential presidency. It is also an opportunity for Biden to continue to craft the narrative of his legacy.

But after that, how do they bridge the gap? How does he pass the baton? And it’s not like Joe Biden will be honored on Monday and then you never speak about him again. Because Vice President Kamala Harris is the vice president for President Joe Biden. So how do they continue to weave the two together while also distinctly carving out a space for her that is still acknowledging the fact that every day she goes to work as the vice president of the United States of America to a president that says he is not yet done?