Kamala Harris has earned enough delegates to become the likely Democratic party nominee, after California delegates voted unanimously to endorse Harris.
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi made the motion to endorse Harris for president at a virtual meeting of California’s DNC delegation on Monday evening, a spokesperson confirmed.
Pelosi, who represents San Francisco in Congress, announced that with the endorsement of California’s delegation, Harris – a native Californian – had earned enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination for president.
Politico reports that California delegates voted unanimously to support Harris:
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If you’re just tuning in: Prominent Democratic elected officials, party leaders and political organizations quickly lined up behind Harris in the day after Biden’s exit from the race and her campaign set a new 24-hour record for presidential donations on Monday.
Several state delegations met late Monday to confirm their support for Harris, including Texas and her home state of California. By Monday night, Harris had the support of well more than the 1,976 delegates she’ll need to win on a first ballot, according to the AP tally. No other candidate was named by a delegate contacted by the AP.
California state Democratic Chairman Rusty Hicks said 75% to 80% of the state’s delegation were on a call Tuesday and they unanimously supported Harris.
“I’ve not heard anyone mentioning or calling for any other candidate,” Hicks said. “Tonight’s vote was a momentous one.”
Still, the AP is not calling Harris the new presumptive nominee. That’s because the convention delegates are still free to vote for the candidate of their choice at the convention in August or if Democrats go through with a virtual roll call ahead of that gathering in Chicago.
The column also mentioned recent remarks by Trump, flaunting his ties with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“It’s nice to get along with somebody who has a lot of nuclear weapons,” Trump said at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week.
While acknowledging Trump’s efforts to build ties during his 2017-2021 presidency, the column said no substantial positive change was brought about.
The US and South Korea have been increasingly alarmed by deepening military cooperation between Russia and the North, accusing them of violating international laws by trading in arms for Russia to use against Ukraine. Moscow and Pyongyang have denied any arms transfer.
A delegation of the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation arrived in Pyongyang on Monday in the latest sign of closer ties between the two countries.
Meanwhile North Korean state media on Tuesday criticized the United States for its elections and cast doubt over hopes of dialogue in the future regardless of the outcome of the US presidential race in November.
The political climate between Democrats and Republicans is “confused by the infighting” and will not change, said a column carried by KCNA without the name of the author.
“Dialogue with sinister attempt and such dialogue as an extension of confrontation are needless to be held from the outset,” the column from the reclusive communist-ruled country said.
Here is Biden’s call to the Harris campaign team event earlier on Monday:
The Harris campaign has released a statement confirming that she has received the support needed to become the Democratic party’s nominee (though a reminder, has not yet been nominated) and that she looks forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.
Here is the full statement:
When I announced my campaign for President, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination. Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee, and as a daughter of California, I am proud that my home state’s delegation helped put our campaign over the top. I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.
I am grateful to President Biden and everyone in the Democratic Party who has already put their faith in me, and I look forward to taking our case directly to the American people.
This election will present a clear choice between two different visions. Donald Trump wants to take our country back to a time before many of us had full freedoms and equal rights. I believe in a future that strengthens our democracy, protects reproductive freedom and ensures every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead.
Over the next few months, I will be traveling across the country talking to Americans about everything that is on the line. I fully intend to unite our party, unite our nation, and defeat Donald Trump in November.”
With Harris raising record funding and securing the support of the majority of delegates, one of the next questions will be: what does polling say.
The last major Harris-Trump polling was conducted when Harris was a hypothetical candidate. She is now the likely nominee.
The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman was on CNN a short while ago, where she said that Biden’s campaign messaging has been “sporadic at best” –and that “when someone is framing the argument against Donald #Trump in a sustained way, that could have a very different effect on the polling than what we’ve seen so far. It may not, but there’s just been an absence of that.”
Delegates could still change their minds before 7 August, but nobody else received any votes in the AP survey, for example, and just 57 delegates said they were undecided.
In a call on Friday, before Biden dropped out, Elaine Kamarck, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a member of the party’s rules committee, likened the process of selecting a new presidential nominee to a mini-primary, with delegates as the voting audience. If Biden were to drop out, the process would be “scrunched into three weeks or something. It’d be incredibly tight.” The question at the convention would then become whether a consensus had formed on a new nominee.
But that’s not exactly what’s happened. Instead, members of the California Democratic party have begun circulating a Google document asking delegates to pledge their support for Harris publicly and immediately. A second Google document was circulating to delegates with a form for pledging their support for Harris on a petition.
It’s been more than 50 years since delegates to a Democratic national convention haven’t known their nominee as they walked through the door. Now, in the wake of Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday not to seek re-election, there’s a mad dash.
Delegates are due to convene in Chicago on 19 August, and while the Democratic party seems to be coalescing around Kamala Harris, there’s no guarantee that she will be the nominee, and others could still throw their name into contention.
But just a few hours after Biden’s announcement, Google documents were circulating asking delegates to pledge their support for Harris.
Delegates are, by and large, local volunteers expected to spend thousands of dollars to fly to Chicago and attend the convention. It’s often viewed as a reward for activism and dedication, but it’s typically a far less consequential role than it might be next month.
The New York delegation to the DNC has endorsed Harris, it confirmed on X. New York has 307 delegates:
Harris will not preside over the chamber when when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday.
According to an aide, she will meet with Netanyahu at the White House at some point this week. On Wednesday, Harris is scheduled to be in Indianapolis to moderate a conversation with the Zeta Phi Beta sorority, Inc, one of the nation’s oldest Black sororities.
Harris’s absence during Netanyahu’s controversial address underlines the mounting tension between the Biden administration and the right-wing prime minister, as the death toll from Israel’s war in Gaza surpasses 39,000.
The vice president, who serves as president of the Senate, would typically preside over the chamber on such occasions, sitting on the House rostrum next to the Speaker as she has done previously for addresses by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Israeli president Isaac Herzog.
The aide emphasized that Harris’s absence should not be interpreted as a snub or change in her commitment to Israel’s security, but represented a scheduling conflict.
During her meeting with Netanyahu this week, the vice president is expected to discuss Israel’s security, as well as to again condemn the 7 October attack and the acts of sexual violence that have occured while stressing her concern for the humanitariain situtaion in Gaza.
In case you missed Harris’s speech to campaign staff, here is a key clip:
The Texas delegation to the DNC has just put out a statement saying it endorses Harris. Texas has 273 delegates, the third highest after California and New York.
Tonight, the Texas Democratic National Delegation proudly announced our endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris as our party’s nominee for President. Her historic tenure as the first Black and South Asian woman to hold the office of the Vice President has been marked by an unwavering commitment to justice, equity, and progress for all Americans. With her extensive experience, dedication to public service, and proven leadership, we believe Kamala Harris is uniquely qualified to defeat Donald Trump and lead our nation forward – championing the values and ideals that unite us as a country.”