- Biden endorses Harris for president
- Harris becomes Democratic nominee
- Massive fundraising boosts Harris’ campaign
The phone line was a little blurry, and the voice on the other end sounded gravelly after several days of COVID-19 seclusion. However, the poignancy of the message and the moment itself could not have been clearer: “I’m watching you, kid.” “I love you,” the speaker stated.
On Monday, Joe Biden made a pleasant call to his vice president, Kamala Harris, at the Democratic Party’s campaign headquarters in Delaware, signaling a generational shift in US politics, a symbolic passing of the torch from parent to progeny.
The 2024 presidential election was likewise a watershed moment. Harris, a former prosecutor, state attorney general, California senator, and 81-year-old Biden’s White House understudy for three and a half years, appeared for the first time as her party’s preferred new candidate, less than 24 hours after her boss’s stunning announcement that he would not seek a second term of office sent shockwaves across the country.
There followed what could be described as a frantic week on the campaign road in an unusual month in American history already marked by the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, the Republican party’s nominee for the November 5 election.
By Wednesday, Harris addressed a historically Black sorority in Indianapolis as the Democratic presumed nominee, having earned enough delegates’ support at the party’s national gathering in Chicago next month to clinch the candidacy.
Biden issued a dynamic, nationally broadcast message from the White House announcing his decision to step down “in defense of democracy” on the same day.
“I revere this office, but I love my country more,” he declared, encouraging the nation to rally behind Harris.
Other prominent Democratic officials began to endorse her individually, ending on Friday with Barack Obama’s overwhelming support. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, all 23 of the party’s state governors, and elected officials ranging from the most junior Congress members to Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, the House minority and Senate majority leaders, all consented.
“We are not playing around,” Harris assured fans at a sorority event in Indiana on Wednesday.
“There is so much at risk in this situation. Like it always has, our country relies on you to energize, organize, and mobilize, register people to vote, get them to the polls, and continue fighting for the future our country and its people deserve.
“We know that organizing causes mountains to move. When we mobilize, nations transform. And when we vote, we create history.
It was a passionate address from a politician who had only three days earlier been playing a supporting role amid weeks of swirling speculation about Biden’s future following his terrible debate performance against Trump in June.
But things moved quickly once the president’s decision to stand down was announced on Sunday afternoon. The Biden campaign apparatus and election war chest of nearly $100 million (£77.6 million) were transferred to a new corporation called Harris for President.
Staff quickly devised a revised travel schedule for the vice president, which included a stop in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday, when she recognized the “rollercoaster” of the previous day.
On Tuesday, she held a rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with the campaign message: “We’re not going back” to the “chaos” of the Trump era.
On Wednesday, she told Black women in Indianapolis, Indiana, “We face a choice between two different visions for our nation: one focused on the future, the other on the past.”
On Thursday, she addressed Houston, Texas teachers: “In our vision, we see a place where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead.”
Also, on Thursday, she first met with a foreign leader, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as a presidential candidate rather than a vice-president at a joint summit. In a White House statement issued in her name rather than Biden’s, Harris criticized the violence and burning of the US flag during Wednesday’s anti-Netanyahu protest in Washington, DC.
In powerful public remarks following the meeting, she went further than Biden did in criticizing civilian suffering in Gaza. “I will not be silent,” she declared.
Israel has the right to defend itself…” However, we cannot disregard these catastrophes. We cannot let ourselves get numb to the pain.”
Meanwhile, behind-the-scenes activities moved at the same pace as Harris’ front-of-house appearances.
Fundraising activities ramped up, raising an all-time record $81 million in a single 24-hour period in presidential campaign history. This was a bonanza for the newly named Harris Victory Fund, which had topped $130 million by Thursday night, primarily from small or first-time contributions.
Harris’ team also produced its first campaign ad on social media, capitalizing on younger voters’ enthusiasm, which polling revealed was noticeably absent for Biden and the 78-year-old Trump. Beyoncé’s 2016 single Freedom, Harris for President’s unofficial anthem, served as the soundtrack for a statement criticizing Trump’s “chaos, fear, and hate” vision for the country.
Harris has excellent appeal among Generation Z, as evidenced by his support from various youth organizations, including March for Our Lives, a student activist group created in the aftermath of the 2018 mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida.
There could not have been a better example than British artist Charli cxx’s proclamation on X/Twitter that “Kamala IS a brat.” More than 53 million people saw the simple message encapsulating a pop culture lifestyle, which delighted the younger generation while also confounding their elders. Maxwell Frost, Florida’s first-generation Z member of Congress, told CNN that you just have to listen to that Charli xcx album to comprehend it.
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Whether it’s coconut trees or talking about brat or whatever, the message is getting across to tens of millions of young people across the entire country and the entire world, and that’s inspiring.
Surprised by Biden’s quick departure and frightened by polls showing Harris gaining ground or surpassing Trump in popularity, the former president’s campaign hurried to develop attack lines for their new opponent.
Trump insulted Harris during a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday, calling her a “radical left lunatic” and “the most incompetent and far-left vice president in American history.” Republican supporters have also launched racial accusations against Harris, who is of Black and Asian descent, accusing her of being “a DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] hire” or “unqualified” for the presidency.
Experts warn that Harris will face an all-out campaign of misogyny and racism as the election approaches.
This week, however, Harris’ fledgling campaign sharpened its blades as it took its first steps. It framed the upcoming campaign as “the prosecutor versus the felon,” taking swipes at Trump’s 34 felony convictions on fraud charges. In a searing missive on Thursday, it mocked the former president’s rambling anti-Harris diatribe on a right-wing news channel by issuing a “statement on a 78-year-old criminal’s Fox News appearance.” The gloves are off.
Now that the first complete, jubilant week of Harris’ presidential campaign is ending, the issue is whether the early enthusiasm and energy will be sustained over the next 101 days.
Harris and her colleagues are convinced that they can. Contrary to the liberal British politican Joseph Chamberlain’s comment more than a century ago that “in politics, there is no use looking beyond the next fortnight,” they are focused on the November election and the eight years after it.
