US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks at her campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, on 22 July 2024. Harris on Monday compared her election rival Donald Trump to “predators” and “cheaters,” as she attacked the first former US leader to be convicted of a crime. (Erin Schaff/AFP/Pool)
- Kamala Harris is poised to clinch the Democratic
presidential nomination after receiving ample delegate support. - Her ascendence follows Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the US
presidential race. - Harris launched a vigorous campaign against Republican
nominee Donald Trump, focusing on issues such as abortion rights and leveraging
her background as California’s chief prosecutor.
US Vice
President Kamala Harris appeared poised to clinch her party’s presidential
nomination after receiving support from enough Democratic delegates Monday, as
she launched a blistering campaign against Donald Trump.
The formal
nomination process for a US presidential candidate occurs when delegates from
across the United States gather to officially anoint a nominee chosen by voters
during the primaries.
But when
President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday, the fate of those
delegates, who had been slated to vote for him, came into question.
With the
support of a slew of Democratic heavyweights, including Biden himself, and
massive voter donations, Harris quickly closed in as the Democratic party’s
heir apparent, and delegates began falling in line to pledge their support.
“Tonight,
I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s
nominee,” Harris wrote in a statement after US media reported she had
sailed past the number of delegates needed – 1 976 out of nearly 4 000 – in
order to decisively secure the Democratic presidential nomination during voting
in the coming weeks.
FOLLOW IT LIVE | DEVELOPING: Harris says she secured broad support needed to become Democratic Party’s nominee
The news
came after Harris, in her first speech to campaign workers since Biden’s
announcement, lashed out at Republican nominee Trump on Monday at campaign
headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.
Telling the
crowd of workers she had come to address them personally after the
“rollercoaster” of the last few days, she reminded them that in her
past role as California’s chief prosecutor, she “took on perpetrators of
all kinds.”
To applause, she said:
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.
“We
are going to win in November,” a smiling Harris told the workers.
She also
pledged to focus on the politically explosive issue of abortion, after Trump
praised the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn the long-held federal
right to the procedure.
Biden, 81,
meanwhile made his first public remarks in nearly a week as he recovered from a
bout of Covid.
He called
in to the campaign meeting to say that dropping out – after mounting party and
voter concerns over his health and mental acuity – had been the “right
thing to do” and he praised Harris as “the best”.
On Tuesday
Harris takes her fight against Trump to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where she will
hold a rally hoping to bolster her following in the critical swing state.
‘Limitless
optimism’
Biden
dropped out and endorsed Harris after three weeks of intensifying pressure,
triggered by a disastrous debate performance against Trump.
Aiming to
become the first woman president in US history, the 59-year-old Harris won the
backing of a seemingly unassailable number of Democrats.
Notably
among them was powerful former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said she
endorsed Harris “with immense pride and limitless optimism.”
Donors have
also rallied behind Harris, pouring a record $81 million into her campaign in
the 24 hours after Biden stood aside.
READ | US Secret Service ‘failed’ in mission to protect Trump – director
The
campaign claimed the haul was the largest one-day sum in presidential history –
and that, among the 888 000 grassroots donors, some 60 percent were making
their first 2024 contribution.
Meanwhile,
an aide to Harris said she would meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu this week during his Washington visit – separate from Biden’s own
planned sit-down.
And in a
strikingly symbolic moment, Harris hosted a ceremony for college athletes at
the White House, with Biden scheduled to return Tuesday from Delaware where he
has been isolating with Covid.
‘Threat to
democracy’
Biden’s
stunning withdrawal has completely upended the 2024 race, transforming a long
slog between two unpopular elderly men into one of the most compelling races in
modern US history.
The move
has jolted a demoralised party that Harris could now unify and could give
America its first female president.
It has also
hit Republicans hard, with former president Trump, 78 – now the oldest
presidential nominee in US history – having to completely retool a strategy
that had been built around attacking Biden over his age and physical frailty.
READ | ANALYSIS: Joe Biden, a stubborn President who fought a battle too far
Harris’s
entry not only flips the age issue, but puts Trump – a convicted felon also
found liable of sexual assault – up against a woman and former prosecutor.
And Trump
has seemingly found it hard to move on from Biden.
He launched
a series of invective-filled social media posts after Biden quit, mocking the
president’s age and saying he and Harris posed a “threat to
democracy.”
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