Chicago hope Democrats heading to convention on a high, but still wary

The Democratic national convention opens at the United Center, the home of the Chicago Bulls, on Monday, as a renascent party embraces its new leader, Kamala Harris, and attempts to supercharge her White House bid.

- Ed Pilkington

Up to 50,000 visitors are expected to descend on Chicago through the week, buoyed up by a Democratic presidential ticket that is currently in the driving seat.

As the Republican grandee Karl Rove put it to Fox News recently: "Donald Trump is clearly in a subordinate role here." But behind all the razzmatazz, and despite the upbeat, made for-TV soundbites emanating from the event stage, there will be a layer of anxiety in the air. The elephant in the arena will be the memory of what happened eight years ago to another female Democratic nominee who seemingly had the measure of Trump.

Few of the 5,000 delegates set to attend the convention will have forgotten the delirious anticipation as election day dawned on 8 November 2016. Hillary Clinton was putting the finishing touches to her victory speech, to be delivered under the glass ceiling of New York's Javits Center in a not-to-subtle representation of the barrier she was about to break as the first female US president.

The hangover of that election night party-that-never-happened endured for the next four years.

Thoughts of Clinton's shocking defeat to Trump are probably to be kept well in the background at this convention. But they may surface in many delegates' minds given that Clinton herself is expected to speak on Monday night.

Out of the agonising experience of her loss have emerged a number of poignant lessons that Harris and her running mate, the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, can already be seen to be heeding. Lesson one of the 2016 rule book: avoid hubris.

The duo will be celebrating the forging of their new, younger leadership of the Democratic party after Joe Biden stepped aside. But even amid such joy - their word they will be working hard to dodge even the slightest hint that they think the election is in the bag.