Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign announced it has raised $81m over the past 24 hours from hundreds of thousands of donors, most of whom were giving for the first time in this election.
The haul is the most money brought in by any candidate ever over a 24-hour period, her campaign said, and includes funds raised by the campaign, joint fundraising committees and the Democratic National Committee. More than 880,000 donors contributed, 60% of whom were making their first donation of the 2024 election cycle.
“The historic outpouring of support for Vice President Harris represents exactly the kind of grassroots energy and enthusiasm that wins elections,” Harris for president spokesperson Kevin Munoz said.
“Already, we are seeing a broad and diverse coalition come together to support our critical work of talking to the voters that will decide this election. There is a groundswell behind Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump is terrified because he knows his divisive, unpopular agenda can’t stand up to the Vice President’s record and vision for the American people.”
The Harris campaign says its war chest totals nearly $250m.
Tens of thousands of women joined a Zoom meeting on Sunday night to support Kamala Harris, raising over $1.5m in three hours.
The meeting, organized by Win with Black Women following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not seek reelection and his endorsement of Harris, saw 44,000 participants fundraise for the vice-president.
Representatives Maxine Waters, Jasmine Crockett and Joyce Beatty joined the call, motivating participants to organize for Harris’s presidential bid, according to the non-profit newsroom Capital B.
Attendees in the Zoom call left comments like “This is work. Roll up your sleeves we got work to do. Praying for protection and covering over all you sisters.”
Wisconsin’s Democratic party voted unanimously to endorse vice-president Kamala Harris for president.
“We’re united, fired up, and ready to deliver Wisconsin for Kamala Harris!” said Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic party of Wisconsin.
Harris is scheduled to visit Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, marking her fifth visit to Wisconsin in 2024 and her ninth time in Wisconsin since becoming vice-president. Support in this battleground state will be key for Harris, should she win the Democratic nomination.
Wisconsin’s delegates join the majority of delegates in several other states, including New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. In Harris’ home state of California, meanwhile, Harris’s supporters are seeking to shore up endorsements. The state party chair Rusty Hicks and other officials have been reaching out to delegates and compiling a list of those pilling to pledge support for the vice-president, according to Politico The state’s 496 delegates would go far in helping her lock up the nomination.
Harris’ campaign is aiming to lock up her presidential nomination by Wednesday, Reuters reports.
Her campaign officials have been furiously making hundreds of phone calls to lock in the support of the majority of Democratic delegates ahead of the party’s national convention in mid August. The news agency cited anonymous sources with knowledge of her campaign strategy.
About a quarter of delegates have already pledged support to her.
A Democratic party ticket led by Kamala Harris seems increasingly likely as scores of high-profile elected Democrats line up to endorse her for president in the wake of Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race.
In Biden’s announcement that he would no longer pursue a second term, he thanked Harris “for being an extraordinary partner in all this work”, and later, in endorsing her, called his choice to run with her in 2020 “the best decision I’ve made”.
In short order, a series of powerful endorsements rolled in, including from Democrats formerly viewed as possible presidential candidates themselves, some of whom are now being floated as potential vice-presidential candidates on a Harris ticket.
If Harris takes up the mantle for the Democratic party, one of her first major decisions as a candidate will be choosing a running mate. Harris has not indicated who she would consider, but here are some of the names Democrats are floating, so far, as possible vice-presidential candidates:
She called the vice-president a “proven leader” in a statement.
“As president, she will grow our economy, reduce costs, create jobs, and make sure every woman has access to the healthcare she needs,” Healey said in a statement on Monday.
With 78-year-old Donald Trump now certain to face a Democratic candidate younger than he is, the Republican could have the tables turned on him over the questions of age and mental agility that he often sidestepped while Joe Biden was his opponent.
The age gap between Trump and any of his likely Democrat opponents – Kamala Harris, 59; the Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, 52; Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, 51 – could make him the sole focus of voters’ desire for a generational handover of power.
And with Biden’s often stumbling public appearances – and especially his disastrous debate – now a thing of the past, there is likely to be a fresh focus on Trump’s mental acuity and his frequently rambling, confused campaign speeches.
Last month, for example, Trump got the name of his own doctor wrong. Previously he has made high-profile campaign trail gaffes, in which he seemed to think Barack Obama was still president and mistook his arch Republican rival Nikki Haley for Nancy Pelosi.
Nearly 60% of US voters said last month that Biden should “definitely” or “probably” be replaced, while Trump’s favorability rating had risen to 40% since his hush-money conviction and the attempt on his life eight days ago. Harris’s favorability sits at around 39%.
Biden’s departure from the ticket upends several aspects of Republicans’ calculations, including that Trump the felon will now possibly have to debate Harris the former prosecutor in September – if she receives the nomination.
The California Democratic representative Eric Swalwell made a rare appearance on Fox News to support Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
The Guardian’s Coral Murphy Marcos reports:
“This is gonna be a race now about the past – in Trump – or the future. And rights or reversal,” Swalwell said.
“The rights she’ll protect – especially a woman’s right to make a decision about her body – and the rights that Trump has taken away with his SCOTUS nominees,” the congressman added.
The TV appearance comes after he publicly endorsed her on Sunday in a 42-second video, also condemning former President Donald Trump’s Project 2025 plan.
Harris is the first sitting vice-president or president to visit an abortion clinic.
She has described the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade and the abortion bans that now blanket the US south as “a healthcare crisis” and frames abortion rights as an issue of personal freedom.
“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do with her body,” she told a crowd in Savannah, Georgia, in February.
Democrats hope that outrage over Roe’s downfall, which hobbled Republicans in the 2022 midterms and led GOP strongholds such as Ohio and Kansas to pass ballot measures protecting abortion rights, will boost turnout among their base – especially in battleground states like Nevada and Arizona. Both states are set to hold abortion–related ballot measures this year.
The biggest abortion rights groups in US politics are lining up behind Kamala Harris’s bid for president.
It’s a show of faith in a politician who has already become the face of the White House’s fight over abortion rights – which is not only one of the election’s biggest issues but one of the few where Democrats have the advantage.
Within hours of Joe Biden’s stunning announcement on Sunday that he would drop out of the presidential race and endorse the vice-president, Emilys List, which champions Democratic women who support abortion rights, and Reproductive Freedom for All, which advocates for abortion access and was previously known as Naral Pro-Choice America, officially endorsed Harris. Emilys List plans to pour at least $20m into the race in support of Harris.
Planned Parenthood Action Fund, whose endorsement must be ratified by local chapters, has not officially weighed in. However, its CEO and president, Alexis McGill Johnson, warmly commended Harris for keeping “the needs and experiences of patients and providers front and center”.
Harris has spent much of this year on a tour of the country in support of abortion rights, where she has proven to be a far more effective messenger on the issue than Biden. The president was infamously reluctant to even say the word “abortion” and fumbled answers to questions about it in the June debate that ultimately cost him his candidacy.
“Just right off the bat, she’s primed to run with the message around abortion rights,” said Jean Sinzdak, associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers. “Her messaging around abortion and being out there forcefully on the issue is going to be a net positive for her.”
In addition to money, Kamala Harris has accrued a slate of endorsements from top Democrats in the 24 hours since she announced her presidential candidacy – including several who were viewed as potential challengers for the nomination.
The Guardian’s Martin Belam has been keeping track of all who are on the vice-president’s side:
Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign announced it has raised $81m over the past 24 hours from hundreds of thousands of donors, most of whom were giving for the first time in this election.
The haul is the most money brought in by any candidate ever over a 24-hour period, her campaign said, and includes funds raised by the campaign, joint fundraising committees and the Democratic National Committee. More than 880,000 donors contributed, 60% of whom were making their first donation of the 2024 election cycle.
“The historic outpouring of support for Vice President Harris represents exactly the kind of grassroots energy and enthusiasm that wins elections,” Harris for president spokesperson Kevin Munoz said.
“Already, we are seeing a broad and diverse coalition come together to support our critical work of talking to the voters that will decide this election. There is a groundswell behind Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump is terrified because he knows his divisive, unpopular agenda can’t stand up to the Vice President’s record and vision for the American people.”
The Harris campaign says its war chest totals nearly $250m.
In a new letter, Joe Biden’s physician, Kevin C O’Connor, said the president was recovering well from Covid-19.
“His symptoms have almost resolved completely. His pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature remain absolutely normal. His oxygen saturation continues to be excellent on room air. His lungs remain clear. The President continues to perform all of his presidential duties,” O’Connor wrote.
Biden has no public events on his schedule today and is recovering at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. He still has not spoken publicly about his decision to end his re-election bid, but the White House said earlier this afternoon that he had received virtual briefings from his national security adviser and his homeland security adviser.
And here’s the letter from Republican House oversight committee chair James Comer and Jamie Raskin, the Democratic ranking member, calling on Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle to resign:
Things are not looking good for Kimberly Cheatle, the Secret Service director, who was peppered with questions from often-frustrated lawmakers on the House oversight committee today, during its hearing into the agency’s failure to prevent the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
At the conclusion of the hearing, Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the committee, said he would collaborate with its Republican chair James Comer on a letter calling for Cheatle’s resignation.
“I don’t want to add to the director’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, but I will be joining the chairman in calling for the resignation of the director, just because I think that this relationship is irretrievable at this point,” Raskin said.
“I think that the director has lost the confidence of Congress at a very urgent and tender moment in the history of the country and we need to very quickly move beyond this.”
It is a notable moment of agreement between Raskin and Comer, who has spent much of his time as oversight committee chair pursuing inquiries into more partisan matters, such as impeaching Joe Biden. Raskin, a fierce opponent of Trump, has coordinated the Democratic counterattacks to the investigation campaign.
The former US attorney general, Eric Holder, who served under president Barack Obama, and his law firm will conduct the vetting process of any potential vice- presidential candidates that could become Kamala Harris’s running mate, according to a report.
Harris is not yet the Democratic party’s nominee for president in the 2024 election and the position will not be filled officially until the convention next month.
But she is the obvious front-runner after Joe Biden endorsed her to replace him at the top of the party’s ticket for the White House this November.
Now Reuters is reporting that Holder will lead the vetting of those she chooses as potential vice-presidential picks if it ends up as her ticket. The agency cited unnamed sources.
Holder returned to his old law firm, Covington & Burling, based in New York, after he left government.
Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader, did not take the opportunity during a brief hallway press conference with reporters on Capitol Hill just now definitively to endorse Kamala Harris for the party’s nomination for president.
He intends to meet with the US vice-president first. That meeting is about to take place, also with the Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer.
Jeffries did say that Biden’s favoring of Harris as his successor has excited Democrats across the party and the country.
The House leader and New York congressman praised Joe Biden, saying “he will go down in history as one of the greatest public servants of all time”.
And he said that Harris was a threat to the Republicans’ election ticket of Donald Trump and JD Vance.
“Donald Trump and the extreme ‘Maga’ Republicans are having a meltdown,” he said, referring to the far right domination of the Republican agenda under the Trump campaign slogan “Make America great again.”
Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader and New York congressman, is about to take questions from reporters on Capitol Hill.
He also just disclosed that he and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, are about to meet with Kamala Harris.
It will be their first in-person meeting since Joe Biden announced he was stepping aside from his 2024 re-election campaign and endorsed Harris, his vice-president, to replace him.
Jeffries said Harris has “excited the community”.
Here comes the governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, a Democrat, with a wry post on X: