The party is over for the Democrats. Now comes the hangover.

CHICAGO – Well, the party’s over.

The Democratic National Convention — a four-day whirlwind of electric speeches, late-night bashes, policy panels and tens of thousands of attendees from across the country feeling absolutely rejuvenated about the prospects of victory in November — has come to an end.

Now comes the hard part as the hangover sets in: Democrats must keep this extraordinary momentum going for another 72 days and mobilize swarms of voters to turn out for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. If they can’t, given this race is so tight right now that it could ultimately be decided by a handful of votes in certain districts in swing states, there is a very real possibility that she will lose to former President Donald Trump.

Former first lady Michelle Obama was introduced to this grim reality Tuesday night, in what was by far the most effective speech of the convention: “Michelle Obama is asking you — no, I’m telling all of you — to do something.”

Certainly a buzzkill at the convention, JS went around asking excited delegates and attendees if, given current polling, they realized Harris might lose.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) acknowledged that the continued celebrations at the convention could obscure the reality for people that the race remains extremely tight.

“I’m very concerned about that,” Stansbury said.

She drew some parallels with Hillary Clinton’s run for president in 2016, when Democrats went to the polls overly confident about winning only to see her lose to Trump. Backed by falsely rosy polls key states and an overreliance on data analysisClinton’s campaign famously started advertising on TV in Texaswhich was never really up for discussion. During the general election, on the other hand, Clinton never campaigned in person in Wisconsin, a state where Trump defeated her by a razor-thin margin.

Although the political landscape has changed dramatically since then – millions of women marched in protest against Trump, thousands of women was a candidate in 2018, social media has become “more democratized” and pollsters have become so too have updated their methods to account for changing voter habits — Stansbury said there are still concerns about a repeat because the stakes are so high and Democrats have only a few months to increase voter education and turnout.

“I think we’re all living with the PTSD of 2016,” she said. “Even if we know she is the most qualified candidate ever, if we don’t get out there and get people to show up to vote, we won’t be able to face the nightmare that was to come. We cannot lose this election.”

Two attendees from Maryland, Kimberly Fernandez and Jarra Childs, summarized how they felt as the conference came to a close.

“Motivated. Accomplished. Hopeful,” they said.

Fernandez, 41, acknowledged how tight the race is but said she is “confident” Harris will win. She said she is ready to become active as a volunteer at home.

“I now have a personal obligation to keep it going. It is not just about Kamala,” Fernandez said. “What I learned this week is that we literally all have a role, and we need to continue to do so. We need to make sure we stay involved. We are in this together.”

Childs, 42, admitted she probably won’t volunteer. But she said Harris’ nomination acceptance speech had a real effect on her.

“It motivated me to tell other people about her,” Childs said. “Hear what her policy is and encourage her to take advantage of it.”

Neither doubted that Harris will be able to run an energetic, inspiring campaign through November. Referring to Harris having just become the nominee after President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid last month, they compared her to an Olympic athlete finishing a relay race, coming in to pick up the baton and running the final lap for the team.

“She’s not hungover,” Fernandez said as she talked. “She should still be on her high. She can take us to this finish line. Everyone has run a marathon. She fresh. She stretches. She is good.”

While the race remains close, Democrats have reasons to feel damn good right now. Pollsters in both parties have watched in awe as Harris’s last-minute entry into the race dramatically increased Democrats’ chances of winning the White House.

“We went from 1 in 3 to 50-50,” Jill Normington, a veteran Democratic pollster and partner at Normington Petts & Associates, told JS. “That’s a huge change in a short time.”

During the day a Wednesday panel of pollsters at the convention, Normington noted that recent polls show women and young voters are particularly enthusiastic about Harris.

“We’re just seeing a huge change in enthusiasm, in intent to vote,” she said. “If you put those two things together, you’re looking at a radically different race now than you were a month ago.”

Abortion rights are also a driving factor in this election cycle, and in a way that benefits Harris. Polls show that Americans are overwhelmingly furious about Roe v. Wade being overturned in 2022 by a conservative-majority Supreme Court, and about the subsequent erosion of women’s reproductive rights in several states.

“There is a maxim in American politics that angry people vote,” Normington said during her panel. “The Republican Party has never had to experience a presidential election where the anger over this issue was on our side.”

But while Democrats’ new hopes and joys are real, that doesn’t mean Harris has it in the bag.

“Everyone in the campaign and every practitioner is still waking up in a cold sweat,” said Evan Roth Smith, a Democratic pollster at Blueprint, a public opinion research group. “We know this is a four- to six-point race.”

Still, it is “extremely important” that Democrats are genuinely excited about the prospect of Harris becoming president, he said, even if the trajectory of the race changes again, as it certainly could.

“You know what? We’re finally up. People are excited,” Smith said. ‘And you know what? Let’s give ourselves a week to pat ourselves on the back or reassure ourselves that this is worth going to the mat for.”

Some convention attendees rejected the idea that Democrats, who rode an emotional roller coaster of joy and tears during the convention, don’t fully understand the work ahead of them to ensure Harris wins.

“It should be hard. It is a very divided country,” said Hassan Martini, executive director of No Dem Left Behind, a group that advocates for rural Democrats.

“I will say we are fortunate to say it is close. A few months ago we were not so optimistic,” Martini said. “These are, I think, the most difficult elections of our lifetime. The last is the most consistent. This one will be the hardest.”