Vice President Kamala 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 President Joe Biden announced he was bowing out.
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 Harris on Sunday, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
And moderate Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va., announced he would not be seeking the nominating himself, which he had been considering just a day earlier.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also endorsed her on Monday, a strong signal to members of her party that Democrats should rally behind her.
It’s now unclear if 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 garner the signatures of 300 delegates, a threshold that may be insurmountable from 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 emerging 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 who might be her running mate.
Harris spent Sunday working the phones, connecting more than 100 party leaders, 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 can 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 it 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 to endorsements until after he has a chance to meet with Harris alongside Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer 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 primary, 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 early Monday morning that nearly $50 million since Biden’s withdrawal, while other left-leaning groups said they saw their own explosive surges in grassroots donations.
“Kamala Harris is logistically in an amazing position,” said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., who had called on the president to step aside and has now 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 “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 re-match between Biden and former President Donald Trump, according to polls.
“She has the opportunity now to not just be in Pres. 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 Trump. 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’ margin 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 on Harris’ “radical record,” the Trump campaign accused her 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 three-and-half-month sprint to November, which helps explain the rush to unite behind Harris 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 president, said Harris has “the unique ability to energize the Democratic Party base” and said the party needs to waste no more time before turning to Trump.
“We must rally around her,” Moore said.
