A majority of pledged Democratic convention delegates have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who said Monday in her first campaign remarks as a presidential candidate that she knows how to take on Republican Donald Trump.
Harris has been quickly consolidating support around her assuming the Democratic nomination for president, with seemingly all of her major potential rivals rallying around her less than 24 hours after Biden announced he was bowing out and state delegate slates endorsing Harris quickly, too.
Delegations across numerous states unanimously endorsed Harris, as the party prepares for its nominating vote in August. The Democratic National Committee has not yet finalized its rules for that vote, but the flock of delegates to the vice president reflected broader coalescing of support throughout the Democratic Party.
Speaking at her campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, following President Joe Biden's decision to step aside, Harris went after Trump, drawing on her time as a prosecutor before she ran for office in California.
“I took on perpetrators of all kinds,” she said, including “predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain.”
“So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type,” she added.
Harris thanked staffers and told them that she had asked Biden campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon to "run" her presidential bid, adding that "she has accepted." Biden's former campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, will stay on with Harris' campaign in her previous position. Campaign officials later said that O'Malley Dillon is Harris' campaign chair and that the leadership posts remain the same.
Harris also lauded Biden, telling campaign staffers, “In one term, he has already surpassed the legacy of most presidents who served two terms in office.”
She spoke shortly after Biden called in to the campaign headquarters from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he is recovering from Covid. He told campaign staff members that deciding to step away from the campaign "was the right thing to do."
"I know it’s hard, because you poured your heart and soul into me to help us win this thing, help me get this nomination, help me win the nomination, and then go on to win the, win the presidency. But you know, you’re an amazing team, but ... I think we made the right decision," he said.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer formally endorsed Harris in statements Monday morning, joining a long list of other Democrats known to harbor national ambitions who came out for her Sunday, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
And moderate Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va., announced he would not seek the nomination himself, which he had been considering just a day earlier.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the former House speaker, also endorsed Harris on Monday, a strong signal to members of her party that Democrats should rally behind her.
It's now unclear whether anyone will even challenge Harris for the Democratic nomination ahead of next month's convention in Chicago, let alone pose a real threat to her. (A hopeful would need to get the signatures of 300 delegates, a threshold that may be insurmountable for the likes of twice-failed candidate Marianne Williamson.)
Statements of support for Harris have been streaming in from seemingly every corner of the sprawling Democratic coalition, with no obvious pockets of opposition having emerged so far.
“We as Democrats don’t have time to waste and figure things out and say, 'Maybe this person' or 'maybe that person.' Kamala Harris is the person," Mayor London Breed of San Francisco, where Harris got her start in elective politics, said at a rally Monday morning.
All 50 state Democratic Party chairs have endorsed Harris, as have a slew of state delegations to the Democratic National Convention, after party officials scrambled to hold emergency meetings and internal votes in the hours after Biden dropped out.
Harris' nomination now seems so assured that Democrats have moved on from speculating about challengers to who might be her running mate.
Harris spent Sunday working the phones, connecting with more than 100 party leaders and working to lock down their support and assure them that she plans to work hard to earn the nomination and take on Trump, according to a person familiar with her effort.
Behind-the-scenes jockeying for the second spot began almost immediately, with potential candidates eager to do what they could to show their support for Harris.
Still, many Democrats say they do not want the process to look like a coronation for Harris, and the co-chairs of the party's Rules Committee, which governs its nominating process, told its roughly 200 members that it will meet Wednesday afternoon to plan what they vowed would be an "open, transparent, fair, and orderly" process to select their nominee.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who replaced Pelosi as the Democratic leader in the House, told reporters he would hold off speaking about endorsements until after he has a chance to meet with Harris alongside Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, also of New York, and confer with his caucus.
But he heaped praise on Harris, saying she "has excited the community, she’s excited the House Democratic Caucus, and she’s excited the country."
Harris' rocky 2020 presidential campaign collapsed when she ran out of money before a single ballot was cast in that year's Democratic primaries, but she will have no shortage of resources this time around.
Major donors have pledged to open the "floodgates," and Biden officially transferred his entire campaign apparatus — and the $96 million it had in the bank — to Harris.
The newly dubbed Harris campaign announced it had raised more than $80 million since Biden's withdrawal. Some of that is included in the $100 million the online fundraising platform ActBlue said it had processed in contributions to Democratic candidates and left-leaning groups since Biden dropped out.
The main pro-Biden super PAC, Future Forward, meanwhile confirmed that it had secured $150 million in new commitments from donors who were previously stalled, uncertain or uncommitted.
"Kamala Harris is logistically in an amazing position," said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., who had called on Biden to step aside and has endorsed Harris. "She is ready to hit the ground running because she has those logistics in place."
"She's got to work to do," Moulton acknowledged, noting that "she has been in the shadow of the president for the past four years."
But he said that also gives her a chance to re-introduce herself to Americans and offer them a fresh start after most said they dreaded a rematch between Biden and Trump, according to polls.
"She has the opportunity now to not just be in President Biden's shadow but to present her own case," he added.
Biden has been trailing Trump all year, and early polls suggest Harris will also start behind him. While she performed slightly better than Biden in some polls that tested both of them against Trump before Biden stepped aside, the difference was negligible and within the polls' margins of error.
Trump's campaign was forced to quickly change gears, and he and some allies complained that they had spent months and tens of millions of dollars attacking Biden, which is now for naught.
But Republicans also said the party had been preparing for this eventually and moved quickly to portray her as too far left for the country.
In a memo about her "radical record," the Trump campaign accused Harris of being "weak on crime," too soft on illegal immigration and in favor of tax increases and restrictive environmental policies.
"Harris will be even WORSE for the people of our Nation than Joe Biden," Trump campaign top brass Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a joint statement, calling her "the Enabler in Chief for Crooked Joe this entire time."
Harris and the rest of her party now have a 3½-month sprint to November, which helps explain the rush to unite behind her and avoid a messy open nomination fight that could risk splintering the party.
"The best path forward for the Democratic Party is to quickly unite behind Vice President Harris and refocus on winning the presidency," said Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a potential White House aspirant himself who nonetheless quickly backed Harris.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, another potential Democratic presidential contender, said that Harris has "the unique ability to energize the Democratic Party base" and that the party needs to waste no more time before it turns to Trump.
"We must rally around her," Moore said.
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