Can Kamala Harris win the presidency in 2024 when Hillary Clinton couldn’t in 2016?

So much has been the same since that night eight years ago in Philadelphia, when Hillary Clinton took the stage in her pure white suit at the Democratic National Convention to the cheers of a teeming crowd.

The former secretary of state and US senator was on the brink of becoming the first female president in American history and was running against first-time candidate Donald Trump, the New York developer who had insulted her throughout the campaign.

“To see Hillary Clinton nominated for the Democratic Party was the culmination of many hopes and dreams,” said U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo, a Palo Alto Democrat who was on the floor of the convention hall that night in 2016. I had been climbing a mountain for a long, long time, so it was exhilarating.”

When Vice President Kamala Harris, the former California attorney general and U.S. senator, takes the stage at the Chicago convention Thursday night to accept her party’s nomination, the joy is sure to be the same. But in November, will the result be different? How is the country different now? Or will this, especially for Democratic women and Harris’ most ardent Bay Area supporters, be another tipping point of no return?

Trump, it seems, has remained the same. Clinton said as much when she returned to the convention stage Monday, this time in a pale yellow jacket, endorsing Harris in Chicago.

“She’s making fun of her name and her laugh,” Clinton said of Trump, shrugging. “Sounds familiar.”

Voters in 2008 and 2012 had elected a black man for president in Barack Obama, but not a woman in Clinton in 2016. She won the popular vote, but lost the election by the electoral votes. Indeed, 45% of college-educated white women cast their vote for Trump.

Now, with national polls showing an extremely tight race between Trump and Harris, Democrats are trying to quell the foreboding sense of deja vu. Former first lady Michelle Obama addressed that creeping fear in a rousing speech Tuesday, telling congressmen to “do something” to elect her.

So what’s different now?

A lot, say Democratic loyalists, longtime politicians and political analysts.

In particular, the political evolution of women and the emerging power of young voters.

After Trump defied the polls and won, millions of women shocked by the result took to the streets with massive women’s marches across the country. The MeToo movement hit in 2017, with women who had secretly endured the humiliation of sexual abuse by powerful men began to share their stories and demand justice.

In 2018, voters elected the largest class of women ever to Congress, with 36 women elected, 35 of whom were Democrats. That force that turned the House from red to blue and was also responsible for returning US Rep. Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House and, in 2020, helping to deny Trump a second term in favor of to Joe Biden.

After Trump-appointed US Supreme Court justices struck down abortion rights in the 2021 Dobbs decision, voters defied a predicted red tide in the 2022 midterm elections. Although Republicans regained control of the House, they did so with a much smaller margin than expected. At the same time, as newly empowered states began to restrict access to abortion across the country, women mobilized to fight them.

“The backlash against Donald Trump was women’s activation,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

Those women, along with young people also politically energized about abortion rights, could change the course of history this time, analysts say.

In 2016, Clinton faced numerous difficulties, including the enduring popularity of US Senator Bernie Sanders among young voters and her own unpopularity after being caught up in scandals dating back to her husband’s presidency.

Elisa Camahort Page, a San Jose activist, author and co-founder of Blogher, said she learned her lesson after Clinton’s loss.

“I think most of us, for too long, have bottled up our excitement and watered it down to be more acceptable in a media environment that has been compelled and determined to make it seem like everyone hates it,” she said, “and I don’t think we’ll do it this time.”

Trump, who was ready to attack Biden as too old and weak before dropping out of the race in July, has had trouble finding an effective message against his new opponent, a 59-year-old black woman . The GOP convention featured Hulk Hogan and played “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” as Trump entered the arena.

Camahort Page says Trump is now suffering from an enthusiasm gap.

“He certainly has his followers, but he’s the one who needs to convert more voters,” she said. “His streak is old now… I mean, how many times is a Hannibal Lecter joke going to be funny?”

Harris may still be enjoying a honeymoon period in her campaign after galvanizing voters and raising record millions in donations.

But by the November election, she is sure to face GOP attacks on her largely liberal record, her shifting positions on controversial issues and her role in the Biden-Harris administration, which has seen record inflation – attacks that could go down better than Trump’s personal insults.