With Biden out, we have a genuine horse race once again.

That’s how it seems to me, anyway. However, at this point we don’t even know for sure whom the Democrats will select to be their horse. For purposes of this post, I’ll assume the Dems will nominate Kamala Harris, as seems likely, but other outcomes are possible.

Harris won’t strike fear into the heart of Donald Trump or Republicans generally. She has never polled well as vice president, and for good reason. Harris comes across as both insincere and unintelligent. I think she’s both — and grating, as well.

With Biden out of the running, Harris now bears the weight of his unpopular administration. And because she was the “border czar,” she bears the full weight of the least popular aspect of the Biden presidency.

Accordingly, Harris (if she’s the nominee) starts in a deep hole. But unlike Biden, she might be able to dig her way out — with an assist from Trump.

Let’s start with the fact that, unlike with Biden, most Americans don’t regard Harris as mentally incapable of performing the duties of president. Unintelligent she may be, but she’s not anywhere close to senility. Nor is intelligence a prerequisite for defeating Trump. Otherwise, Biden would not have accomplished it.

Unlike Biden, Harris can complete a spoken thought. She can memorize talking points. Biden’s inability to do either during the June debate is what dropped him from behind Trump to well behind Trump.

Harris can debate competently. In fact, it was her effective performance in the first Democratic presidential debate of 2019 that propelled her to prominence.

It’s true that she wilted under attack from Tulsi Gabbard in the next debate. However, she held her own against Mike Pence in the vice presidential debate of 2020.

Many Republicans probably assume Trump would blow Harris away in a debate. I don’t, and would have much preferred a J.D. Vance-Harris matchup.

Trump did not debate well against Biden last month. He looked good only in comparison to his opponent.

I’ve seen no evidence, either in that debate or the convention speech, that Trump is capable of doing much more than claiming that his administration was the greatest and Biden’s the worst. Trump seems wedded to the talking points of his stump speech. I’ve yet to see him go beyond them.

These talking points are fine when he’s preaching to the converted. In my opinion, they are lame and off-putting when he’s talking to anyone else.

There’s also the question of how Trump would behave in a debate against Harris. I assume he’d behave the only way he seems to know how — boorishly. Although boorishness didn’t hurt him much against Hillary Clinton, female swing voters might hold it against him when the target is a female candidate other than Hillary.

Speaking of boorishness, Trump’s reaction to Biden’s withdrawal qualifies. I have no sympathy for Biden. I wish him an unhappy and bitter retirement.

But if I were running against him, I would have forced myself to be a little more gracious than Trump managed to be — especially if I had just given a convention speech calling for unity. Obviously, Trump couldn’t praise Biden, nor should he have. But he could have wished him well in retirement and avoided insulting the guy.

The attempt on Trump’s life has not changed him, nor was there any reason to believe it would. Trump has only one mode, and it’s the one that has made him unpopular. While fair-minded Americans will applaud him for emerging from the shooting saying “fight,” most will not applaud the way he fights. They never really have.

Trump is now the old person in the race. He’s the recycled nominee. And he’s the divider.

Harris is younger, fresher, and less divisive (though neither young, fresh, nor unifying).

She’s also in a position to benefit from a coronation of sorts. If she’s the nominee, Harris can use a highly choreographed national convention as her coming out party. The media will gush. A “new Kamala” narrative will emerge.

Most Americans surely are too intelligent to take this narrative seriously. However, enough might embrace it to put Harris on level pegging with Trump — or at least to put the Democrats back in the game.

They were no longer in the game with Biden as their nominee. In my view, the chances of him winning had fallen to somewhere around 10 percent. (Nate Silver put them at between 10 and 15 percent.)

For what it’s worth, I think the chances of Harris winning would be considerably higher — perhaps in the neighborhood of one-in-three, which is where Silver thought Biden’s were before the Biden-Trump debate (f I recall correctly). They might even be better than that.

But a firm estimate of Harris’ victory odds is premature until she’s nominated (if she is) and until we see post-DNC polls. By the same token, I’m not inclined to take polling of a Trump-Harris race seriously until after the convention.

Stay tuned.