Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at her campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., on July 22.Erin Schaff/The Associated Press
Barely a day old, the Kamala Harris campaign boasted a windfall of cash and elite endorsements, as the U.S. Democratic Party apparatus closed ranks around a leader it hopes to make the first female president.
By Monday evening, a sufficient number of party delegates had pledged to support Ms. Harris that she can expect to clinch the party’s nomination, Ms. Harris said, adding that she looking forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.
Ms. Harris, the U.S. Vice-President, received Joe Biden’s endorsement Sunday to take his place as the Democratic presidential candidate. Over the next 24 hours, donors lavished her presidential bid with what the campaign said was a single-day record of US$81-million.
Party officials, in another sign of the Democrats’ enthusiasm for Ms. Harris, said they intend to formalize their candidate selection on or before Aug. 7. Potential rivals also lined up behind Ms. Harris in a show of party unity.
Until Mr. Biden’s sudden withdrawal Sunday after weeks of concern within his party about his age and mental fitness, the President had argued that he was best-suited to defeat Donald Trump. On Monday, an ebullient Ms. Harris, in a televised address to campaign workers, made the case that it is she who is uniquely qualified for that task.
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As a California prosecutor and attorney-general, she said, “I took on perpetrators of all kinds. 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.”
Republicans have moved swiftly to characterize Ms. Harris as dishonest, unpopular and an essential co-author of border policies that enabled a surge in illegal migration. “Kamala Harris is Joe Biden 2.0. In fact, her record is even worse and she is even further to the left,” Mr. Trump’s campaign said Monday.
On his Truth Social platform, Mr. Trump directed a series of insults at Ms. Harris, calling her “dumb as a rock,” “totally failed and insignificant” and, in all capital letters, “horrible & incompetent.”
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Democrats took delight in the tirade. Mr. Trump and his campaign are having “a complete and total meltdown,” said Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic Party’s leader in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Mr. Trump’s campaign pointed to a series of polls that have shown the former president as considerably more popular than Ms. Harris. Such concerns were also reflected in focus groups carried out by Longwell Partners, which has held at least 50 such sessions with U.S. voters in the past year.
Voters “don’t think she has been very visible during Biden’s presidency. They have concerns about her handling of certain policy areas within the administration, such as immigration,” said Rylee Boyd, a spokesperson for Longwell. She also represents Republican Voters Against Trump, a political advocacy group.
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Early in Mr. Biden’s presidency, he tasked Ms. Harris with leading the White House response to the country’s southern border. In the years that followed, record numbers of illegal migrants crossed into the U.S. Mr. Trump has made a more secure border one of his chief platform policies.
But, Ms. Boyd said, voter qualms about Ms. Harris are not baked in. “They’re loosely held opinions because they haven’t seen her that much,” she said. The Vice-President, Ms. Boyd said, has time to introduce herself to the country, and to make the case that she can lead a coalition against Mr. Trump.
“This race is a referendum on Donald Trump,” said Rick Wilson, a Florida political strategist who was co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an effort by conservatives to oppose re-election for Mr. Trump.
The Vice-President, he believes, is an ideal foil to Mr. Trump. “She is a woman. She is Black. She is smart. She laughs in his face. And she’s a prosecutor. Those are the things Donald Trump loathes,” Mr. Wilson said.
“This is not the race that it was two days ago.”
In her first public remarks since President Joe Biden endorsed her to take over the 2024 campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris praises what she calls Joe Biden's 'unmatched' legacy and says she is 'deeply grateful for his service to our nation.'
The Associated Press
No other contender for the Democratic nomination has yet to emerge, and political observers said it would be difficult to envisage a senior political figure seeking to challenge Ms. Harris, a woman of Black and South Asian descent who benefits from the considerable expertise and funding of the Biden campaign apparatus.
“Politically, make no mistake: Kamala Harris as a woman in politics is brilliantly astute – and I have full confidence that she will lead us to victory in November,” Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker who remains among the country’s most powerful Democrats, said on Monday, offering her endorsement.
Ms. Pelosi had been one of the few Democrats yet to endorse the Vice-President. That list continues to shrink, although it includes one of the party’s most powerful figures: Barack Obama, who has not yet backed any potential candidate.
In some states whose delegates had previously been pledged to support Mr. Biden, Democratic leaders said overwhelming numbers had shifted to Ms. Harris. At least 1,200 delegates have declared their intent to support Ms. Harris, according to an Associated Press tabulation. She needs 1,976 to clinch the nomination.
For Mr. Trump, the sudden withdrawal of Mr. Biden shifts the landscape, pitting him against a new opponent whose identity has yet to be confirmed – although Democratic officials, in another sign of the party’s enthusiasm for Ms. Harris, said they intend to advance the date on which they formalize their selection.
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The two parties are likely to contest the election over which candidate is more extreme – Mr. Trump on the right, or Ms. Harris on the left, said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a political newsletter run by the University of Virginia Center for Politics. In 2019, Ms. Harris promised to introduce a form of universal health care. She has advocated for “reimagining” public safety in the U.S., which Republicans have equated to seeking to defund police. Polls have also shown a dim public opinion of her work as Vice-President.
“Maybe she can make a positive impression as she campaigns,” Mr. Kondik said. “But that requires making assumptions about her performance that I don’t think we should make.”
One of the first attempts to gauge public opinion since Mr. Biden’s withdrawal underscored the difficulty of challenging Mr. Trump, who has maintained a lead for months. The Quinnipiac University national poll found Ms. Harris two points behind the former president, although that gap falls within the margin of error.
Mike Madrid, a California Republican consultant, warned against “irrational exuberance” about Ms. Harris in an election where voter partisanship is so firmly entrenched that seismic events have barely moved polls. Ms. Harris may achieve marginal gains for Democrats, and “marginal is going to determine the race,” he said. “But there is as much, and maybe greater, downside potential than upside with a candidate you don’t know.”
Mr. Trump’s campaign has already spent months taking aim at Ms. Harris. In February, it mocked her way of speaking with video of her repeating the term “significance of the passage of time.”
On Monday, it released a new campaign ad that linked Ms. Harris to Mr. Biden’s policies on the economy and immigration, while making the case that she misled the American public about the President’s mental acuity. Concerns about Mr. Biden’s age and his diminishing powers of public discourse played a central role in his decision to step aside under pressure from Democratic Party leaders and donors.
“Kamala was in on it,” the new ad for Mr. Trump declared.
Ms. Harris, too, “covered up Joe’s obvious mental decline,” the ad continued. “But Kamala knew Joe couldn’t do the job. So she did it.”
With a file from Reuters.