United States Vice-President Kamala Harris effectively secured the Democratic party’s presidential nomination on Friday (local time).
Harris was the sole candidate on the ballot for a five-day electronic vote of nearly 4,000 party convention delegates. She is the first Black and South Asian woman to ever secure a major party’s nomination. She will be officially crowned at a Chicago convention later this month.
Harris said on a phone-in to a party celebration she was “honoured” to have amassed the required support by the second day of the marathon virtual vote and declared: “We are going to win this election”.
“And it is going to take all of us … We are going to talk with people about the fact that we are all in this together, and we stand together,” Harris said.
In the two weeks since Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, Harris has gained full control of the party, smashing fundraising records, packing arenas and erasing the polling leads Trump had built over the president.
Two decades younger than 78-year-old Trump, the Vice-President has made a fast start, raising US$310 million ($476 million) in July, according to her campaign — more than double Trump’s haul.
“I couldn’t be prouder,” Biden posted on X following her nomination.
The nomination milestone came with Harris preparing to hit the campaign trail new week for a swing across seven crucial election states alongside her yet-to-be-named running mate.
Harris and her running mate are scheduled to rally Tuesday in Pennsylvania — a crucial swing state, where Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro is on the shortlist to join Harris’ ticket.
She will also tour the more racially diverse Sun Belt and southern states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina as she seeks to shore up the Black and Hispanic vote.
While Biden made high-minded appeals for a return to civility and the preservation of democracy, Harris has focused on the future, making voters’ hard-fought “freedom” the touchstone of her campaign.
She and her allies have also been more aggressive than the Biden camp — mocking Trump for reneging on his commitment to a September debate and characterising the convicted felon as an elderly crook and “weird.”
Meanwhile Trump and his Republicans have struggled to adapt to their new adversary or hone their attacks against Harris — at first messaging that she was dangerously liberal on immigration and crime before pivoting to falsely accusing her of pretending to be Black for political purposes.
