As Trump encounters difficulties caricaturing Harris as effectively as he did with “Crooked” Hillary Clinton and “Sleepy” Joe Biden, his prior two campaign rivals, the convention provided Democrats with the opportunity to workshop their own political attacks.

Despite Harris using her nomination acceptance speech to introduce what she is describing as her “New Way Forward” platform, she mentioned Trump 16 times, calling him an “unserious man” with “serious consequences.”

“Consider the power he will have, especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled that he would be immune from criminal prosecution,” Harris told conventiongoers in Chicago, alluding to the partial immunity justices granted presidents earlier this year. “Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”

Four years after former first lady Michelle Obama encouraged Democrats to “go high” when Republicans “go low,” Obama criticized Trump for his racially tinged rhetoric about her and her husband, former President Barack Obama.

“Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘black jobs’?” she said of Trump, seizing on Trump’s claim at the June debate that immigrants were undermining black employment.

Barack Obama also made a quip on crowd size at Trump’s expense.

But it was a speech from Clinton, the former secretary of state and 2016 presidential nominee, that became one of the most notable takedowns of the week. She, like other senior Democrats, has used Harris’s background as a San Francisco prosecutor and California attorney general to draw a contrast with Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business documents.

“As a prosecutor, Kamala locked up murderers and drug traffickers. She will never rest in defense of our freedom and safety,” Clinton said. “Donald Trump fell asleep at his own trial, and when he woke up, he made his own kind of history — the first person to run for president with 34 felony convictions.”

Democrats dispute that an anti-Trump message is the entirety of Harris’s argument on the campaign trail. The flip side of the coin is using the former president as a foil for what Democrats say is a forward-looking vision.

“Never before have we had someone who was the nominee of a major political party who was a convicted felon and found liable for sexually assaulting a woman,” high-profile lawyer Gloria Allred told the Washington Examiner in a downtown hotel after delegation breakfasts. “Of course, we’re going to mention it, but the focus is not the past. It’s on the future. As much as Trump would like to make everything about him, it’s really about the American people and what we’re going to do for their families in the future.”

Meanwhile, not all Democrats are comfortable with the heavy emphasis on using the term “felon” to describe Trump’s moral character.

“What I’m here to say is that we need to call out people that have proven that they are willing to cheat, lie, and steal,” DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston told the Washington Examiner at a Georgia breakfast. “That is a problem, and there are plenty of people in the criminal justice system that take accountability for their actions and want redemption. Donald Trump has proven not to be one of those people, right? And that’s how I want to talk about it.”

But Democratic leaders widely believe that Trump should be central to their message to voters, just as he was in the midterm elections.

Democratic rising stars, including Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), a possible contender for president in 2028, contended it is important to “prosecute the case” against Trump and “remind people of the damage he did and the chaos he brought and the freedoms he restricted.”

“I remain more hopeful than ever before because I’m betting on the American people,” Shapiro told the Washington Examiner outside a Democratic National Committee Labor Council meeting. “I’m betting on folks to do what we’ve done for the last 2 1/2 centuries — rise up and seek a more just outcome. And I think if that’s what the American people do again, we’re going to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”

Republicans have made Harris the centerpiece of their campaign message to voters. But their focus has been on policy, in particular the views the vice president held when running for president in the 2020 elections. She has pivoted to the center on some issues in recent weeks, but Republicans believe her support for a ban on fracking and flirtations with the defund the police movement will prove to be a liability for her in critical swing states.

Trump has largely adopted that approach, though he has been chided by allies for lobbing personal attacks at Harris that center on her intelligence and racial background.

Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler argued that framing Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), as “joyful warriors” will help them win battleground states, including his. Walz was among the first to use the term “joy” to characterize a rejuvenated campaign after Biden exited the 2024 race.

“The campaign is striking exactly the right note to remind voters that they’re running against a 34-time convicted felon who’s constantly put himself ahead of the country and also to really focus on defining who Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are,” Wikler told the Washington Examiner at a Wisconsin breakfast. “These are folks who are less well known to the voters who pay the least attention to politics, and voters already know who Trump is, so the core opportunity now is to draw that contrast between the person who’s broken the law and tried to overturn an election so that he could hold on to power and the prosecutor and child of the middle class who’s fighting to make a country where everyone is free and where there’s opportunity for all.”

Wisconsin delegate Linda Norton, 75, said she agrees the Harris campaign does not have to “change” anything it is doing so far.

“Stick to policies. Stick to what they want to do for the American people. We’ll be fine,” Norton, a retired Eau Claire clinician, told the Washington Examiner at the same breakfast.

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), who attempted to primary President Joe Biden this cycle, said he is happy, too, with the Harris campaign’s strategy.

“You can be strong and you can be principled. You can also be compassionate,” Phillips told the Washington Examiner on the convention floor. “We need to bring joy back to this country. I speak to conservatives and liberals in the same tone, and I demand that we give a little more thought to doing so because what a blessing that would be if we could debate with smiles on our face and show a little bit more compassion for one another. That’s what this is all about.”

To that end, aside from deciding how Democrats should talk about Trump, the party is also contemplating how to speak to Republicans.

For Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), another possible 2028 contender and one of only a couple of Democratic governors who lead a Trump-supporting state, Harris should appeal to Republicans by proposing policies that improve people’s lives.

“When they wake up in the morning, they’re worried, like I talked about in there, about their job, their next doctor’s appointment, the roads and bridges they’re going to drive, the public school that they drop their kids off at, and public safety,” Beshear told the Washington Examiner outside a DNC Rural Council meeting. “With the Republicans that are running right now, Donald Trump and [vice presidential nominee] J.D. Vance, going to such extremes, there’s an opportunity to be the party that governs in your day-to-day life, that tries to make it better, that doesn’t try to move a state or a country to the right or the left but to move it forward for everyone.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a more liberal Democrat, concurred while recommending that Democrats not forget to speak to the working class.