| It might not be too early to call Vice President Harris the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Support for Harris snowballed rapidly in the hours after President Biden announced yesterday he would bow out of the 2024 race amid intense pressure within his party. Some have called for an “open process” to choose the next nominee, but the party is quickly coalescing around Harris.
- Biden endorsed her to be the party’s nominee in a post on X, writing: “My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made.”
- The Biden-Harris campaign officially filed with the Federal Election Commission to become the Harris for President campaign. She has inherited the campaign’s roughly $100 million in cash on hand and the entire campaign infrastructure.
- On an all-staff campaign call yesterday, Biden’s top campaign aide, Jen O’Malley Dillon, told the staff that they all still have jobs and that Biden’s 81-million vote coalition is “there for Kamala Harris.”
- The party is rallying around her. More than 170 House and Senate Democrats have backed Harris as the presidential nominee, according to The Washington Post’s endorsement tracker.
- State delegations are quickly coming out in support of Harris, including from New Hampshire, South Carolina and Louisiana.
- Fundraisers say donors are responding enthusiastically. Donors are “all in and … ready to go,” said Bradley Beychok, co-founder of the anti-Trump super PAC American Bridge.
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Most critical to Harris’s path to winning the nomination next month at the Democratic convention in Chicago: No viable candidate has stepped forward to challenge her. Starting up a presidential campaign to challenge Harris in mere weeks would be a nearly impossible feat. Potential challengers including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper have endorsed Harris. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has said she won’t challenge Harris. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) is the only one so far who has opened that door, saying he’s considering becoming a Democrat again to run, our colleagues Liz Goodwin and Amy Wang report. But we are extremely skeptical he would actually run for president this year. Harris is working to reconnect with her former colleagues on Capitol Hill. She spent most of Sunday asking for their support and pledging that she will do her best to “earn” and “win” the nomination next month. Harris called Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). She also called nearly all the chairs of House Democratic caucuses — the Black, Hispanic, Asian Pacific American and Progressive caucuses as well as the New Democrat Coalition — to ask for their support. Members of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition didn’t receive a call as of late last night. Harris, as well as her current and former staffers, also called rank-and-file members to either thank them for their support or ask them to publicly get behind her. But key leaders in the party haven’t yet endorsed her, including House and Senate Democratic leaders, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Obama.
The leaders of the party are waiting to see where the chips fall. They are reluctant to make it look like a coronation by party elites, especially as the base expresses fury that donors and elected officials were pushing Biden out. Pelosi told colleagues in the California delegation this month that Harris should win by popular approval, fearing that crowning her the nominee could anger Democratic voters. (But she also told members that if the time came, the delegation should promptly defend and whip support for Harris.) Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.) said Democratic members of Congress aren’t ignoring the will of primary voters. “They voted for Biden-Harris,” Kuster told us. What about vice president? The bigger question, aides we speak to say, is who will be the vice-presidential nominee. Leigh Ann and our colleagues reported over the weekend that Democratic donors had started a vetting process independent of the campaign. They had already contacted Shapiro and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. And they are interested in Cooper, Whitmer and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona. In recent weeks, Harris has appeared with many of the Democrats who are being viewed as potential running mates should she take over the top of the ticket. A day after the debate, Harris was in Nevada with Kelly. She has twice appeared at campaign events in North Carolina with Cooper, and she campaigned with Shapiro last weekend in Pennsylvania.
Republican response Former president Donald Trump has to recalibrate his attacks, and he has already started. In a rally over the weekend, before Biden announced he was stepping aside, Trump devoted some of his stump speech to attacking Harris, mixing in gender stereotypes. “I call her Laughing Kamala. Have you watched her laugh? She is crazy. You know, you can tell a lot by a laugh. No, she’s crazy. She’s nuts,” Trump said. Republican attacks against Harris are quickly coming into focus, none more than “Border Czar Kamala.” Biden put Harris in charge of diplomatic efforts with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, known as the Northern Triangle countries, to try to alleviate migration to the U.S. southern border. But Republicans are misconstruing her role and attacking her as being in charge of the border, hoping to make it a key weakness in her candidacy. House Republicans may take a vote this week on GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik’s resolution that would condemn Harris’s role as “border czar” and show that she “owns this border crisis.” As for Biden, House Republicans labeled the president’s decision to step aside as proof he is unfit to serve and quickly began calling for him to resign, we report with our colleague Mariana Alfaro. What else to read on the shake-up in the Democratic nomination: Kamala Harris has a career of comebacks. She has 107 days to do it again. By Peter Jamison and Cleve R. Wootson Jr. The Democrats who have endorsed Kamala Harris to replace Biden as nominee. By Hayden Godfrey, Adrian Blanco, Kati Perry, Hannah Dormido and Eric Lau. Manchin weighs options after Biden exits presidential race. By Liz Goodwin and Amy B Wang. Biden dropped out. This is how it happened. By Michael Scherer, Tyler Pager, Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker and Yasmeen Abutaleb. Biden’s historic move sets Democrats and the country on an uncertain path. By Dan Balz. World leaders hail Biden’s ‘brave’ decision to end his 2024 campaign. By Jennifer Hassan and Anika Arora Seth. As Biden ends campaign, focus shifts to health for remainder of his term. By Dan Diamond. |
