Former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern heads to Chicago for Democratic National Convention

Former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern and Vice-President Kamala Harris in 2022. Photo / Facebook

Former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern is heading to Chicago to join Democrats from across the United States for their pre-election national convention, alongside former President Barack Obama and the party’s presidential candidate, Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Conventions are traditionally where the party’s candidate for President is formally nominated.

This year, the late timing of the convention meant Harris was officially confirmed as the Democratic candidate this month in a virtual roll call of party delegates.

A spokesperson for Ardern confirmed her attendance.

As well as attending the main convention, Ardern is participating at a side-event hosted by the Centre for American Progress Action Fund, a Democrat-aligned think-tank and advocacy organisation.

She will join a panel hosted by the group’s chief executive, Patrick Gaspard, a former US ambassador to South Africa. The topic of the panel is “how to address the anxiety of our times, advance social policy to solve problems that affect everyday life, and begin to heal our nation”.

It will be a rare instance of a former New Zealand politician speaking on one of these panels.

Ardern’s attendance will only fuel parallels between her and Harris.

Both were handed their respective party leaderships at points of political crisis and quickly turned around their respective parties’ political fortunes – although in Harris’ case it is too early to say whether her turnaround job has been successful.

Harris is, probably unknowingly, leaning into the comparison herself, using slogans like “let’s win this” and “let’s do this together” on her campaign, an obvious echo of Ardern’s “let’s do this”.

Ardern met the Vice-President during an official visit to Washington DC in 2022. In a post to Facebook, Harris said the pair discussed “the growing space partnership between the US and New Zealand, which includes taking action to address the climate crisis” as well as “efforts to combat hate, extremism, and gun violence”, the latter being a perennial top in American politics.

Harris’ campaign has changed the race for the White House with fresh New York Times/Siena polling showing Harris has leapt ahead of Trump in some key battleground states and narrowed the gap in others.

In a poll published this week, Harris led Trump in Arizona and North Carolina, and trails him narrowly in Nevada. The North Carolina lead is particularly significant given it is the only one of the seven core swing states, that will likely determine the election, that Trump managed to win in 2020.

Harris is ahead in Michigan and Wisconsin and managed a four point lead in Pennsylvania in the same poll, taken at the beginning of the month. Strong polling in these states opens up several paths to victory for Harris, while closing off some for Trump.

The party convention is seen as a crucial moment where a candidate has an almost unimpeded hold on national attention to set out their vision for the country.

President Joe Biden, who ended his bid for a second term, and Democratic grandees like Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton are also expected to attend.

Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.