Kamala Harris has more than enough pledged delegates to clinch the Democratic U.S. presidential nomination, following an extraordinary two-day blitz that saw the vice president consolidate her party’s backing to challenge former U.S. President Donald Trump in November.
Harris sealed her status as the presumptive nominee Monday night after crossing the magic number of 1,976 pledged delegates, according to an unofficial tally.
While delegates who indicated their support are not required to back her nomination, the achievement — and lack of credible opposition — underscores the vice president’s hold on the Democratic ticket.
U.S. President Joe Biden tapped Harris — a 2020 primary rival who became his running mate — as heir apparent shortly after announcing Sunday that he would step aside, following weeks of escalating pleas to step aside in the aftermath of a poor debate performance last month.
Harris quickly picked up endorsements including former U.S. President Bill Clinton and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She won the support of Democratic governors rumored to be possible candidates: California’s Gavin Newsom, Illinois’ JB Pritzker and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer. Harris also benefited from donor enthusiasm, banking a record $81 million in the first 24 hours after announcing her candidacy.
"It is my intention to go out and earn this nomination and to win,” Harris told workers Monday at her campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. "So in the days and weeks ahead, I, together with you, will do everything in my power to unite our Democratic Party, to unite our nation and to win this election.”
Biden, who is quarantining at his beach home in Delaware after testing positive for COVID-19, called into the campaign meeting to say he would be "working like hell” for his vice president’s run.
"I won’t be on the ticket, but I’m still going to be fully, fully engaged,” Biden said. "I’ll be doing whatever Kamala wants me, needs me to do.”
The president had won 99% of the pledged delegates to August’s Democratic National Convention through a series of state primaries and caucuses earlier in the year, and his endorsement served as a rallying point for the party.
The vice president took over Biden’s campaign, which was renamed "Harris for President,” giving her access to its $96 million war chest. She said Thursday that the campaign’s leadership — chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez — would remain in place.
Delegates will formalize their votes in the coming weeks. Earlier Monday, party leaders outlined a virtual balloting process to officially designate a nominee by Aug. 7.
Harris will now recommend a running mate to those same delegates, who will ratify the slate at the party’s national convention in Chicago the week of Aug. 19 — if not through a similar virtual roll call earlier in the month.
Speculation has swirled around a group of White, male elected officials, many of whom are from battleground states. That included a cavalcade of governors — Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, Kentucky’s Andy Beshear and Minnesota’s Tim Walz — as well as Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona. Whitmer told CBS’s Lansing affiliate that she was not interested in the post.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder and his firm, Covington & Burling, is working to vet possible running mates, according to a person familiar with the process.
In another sign of how rapidly and broadly the Harris movement extended, the AFL-CIO announced Monday that its executive council had "unanimously endorsed” her.
Harris has vulnerabilities, including a tenure marked by frequent staff turnover and persistent doubts about her aptitude for retail politics. A recent CBS News/YouGov poll showed Harris performing better than Biden — but still trailing Trump nationally.
She's set to hold her first campaign rally as a 2024 presidential candidate on Tuesday in Milwaukee.
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