It’s hard to say there was much suspense, but what little there was was resolved Tuesday night, when Vice President Kamala Harris burned through another stage of her road to the White House at the same speed as everyone else, with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announcing that 99% of delegates had backed the call to name her the party’s nominee in November.
The overwhelming percentage confirms that the support Harris received from President Joe Biden a couple of Sundays ago, after he announced that he would not run for re-election, translated into an almost unanimous closing of ranks in the party. In less than 24 hours, Harris obtained the commitment of the delegates she needed to safely attend the Democratic National Convention, which opens its doors in less than 20 days in Chicago. She also garnered the support of the party’s heavyweights, from Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, to Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader, and Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Leader in Congress, as well as the Obama couple, who finally made their enthusiasm public last Friday.
The governing body of the party recently gave a deadline of July 31 for the presentation of new candidates. In the end, only Harris showed up, as expected. Fears that Biden’s resignation, insistently demanded since his disastrous debate against Republican candidate Donald Trump on June 27, would lead to a bitter fight within the party have now been completely dispelled.
“We have met this unprecedented moment with a transparent, democratic and orderly process that has resulted in everyone uniting behind a candidate with a proven track record who will lead us in the fight ahead,” DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison said in a statement Tuesday night.
The process that is now underway is not expected to bring any surprises either. The more than 4,000 delegates called to the Democratic National Convention will begin voting virtually on Thursday to formalize Harris’ nomination. The idea is for the process to end before August 7, a date imposed by the rules of Ohio, a state that sets that day as the deadline for knowing the name that will appear on the ballot of both parties.
Harris’ campaign has promised that by then the great electoral enigma that remains to be solved will also be cleared up: who will be the vice presidential candidate who will accompany her in the ticket. According to sources in the campaign, the idea is to announce it before next Tuesday, when a joint rally is planned in Philadelphia, the most populous city in the decisive state of Pennsylvania. This event will be followed by a lightning-fast trip through other crucial territories in the elections, which includes stops in Western Wisconsin, Detroit (in Michigan), Raleigh (North Carolina), Savannah (Georgia), Phoenix (Arizona) and Las Vegas (Nevada).
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The fact that the trip will start in Philadelphia has led analysts to believe that her choice will be Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who on Tuesday denied having met with Harris since Biden’s resignation. The vice president’s campaign confirmed that in the coming days she will speak with the candidates whose names have entertained the press in the last week and a half.
In addition to Shapiro, the candidates include Florida Senator Mark Kelly, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and the governors of Kentucky and Minnesota, Andy Beshear and Tim Waltz. Two things are clear at this point: the chosen candidate will be a white man, to counterbalance the ticket headed by a woman of black and South Asian heritage like Harris, and that the governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, is out of the running, by his own decision, announced on Monday.
Any candidate seeking the presidency on behalf of the Democratic Party had until 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Washington time (midnight in mainland Spain), to present the endorsement of at least 300 delegates. Harris was the only one to do so, according to the Democratic National Committee.
Marianne Williamson, a self-help book author who ran in the 2020 and 2024 primaries with little success, threatened to take on the vice president. “We did everything we could to participate in these lightning primaries, [y propiciar] an open convention. The way the rules were set up, there really was no way, Kamala’s momentum was in full swing and all we could have done is create noise,” Williamson told her followers.
Despite the virtual vote to comply with Ohio rules, an in-person cheer for Harris is expected to take place in Chicago on the first day of the convention. Democrats had planned to nominate Biden virtually since May, when they realized that holding the party’s conclave later than usual was inconsistent with the Midwestern state’s rules.
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