Harris enters fast-tracked campaign to challenge Donald Trump

Vice President Kamala Harris records remarks in the Vice President’s ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. (Erin Scott/The White House)

Vice President Kamala Harris is poised to become a first yet again.

Following President Joe Biden’s announcement on Sunday that he would be dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsing Harris, she issued a statement saying she intends “to earn and win the nomination” to be the Democratic Party’s official candidate for president. Should she do so, she would be the first Black and the first South Asian woman to secure a presidential nomination from either major party.

“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination. Over the past year, I have traveled across the country, talking with Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election,” Harris said. “And that is what I will continue to do in the days and weeks ahead. I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.”

This report was originally published by The 19th. The Illuminator is a founding member of The 19th News Network.

According to a person familiar with the situation, Harris spoke with Biden several times Sunday before he announced his exit from the campaign and threw his support behind her candidacy. Several hours after Biden made his initial announcement, Harris issued her statement, nodding to her intentions.

Biden’s announcement came three and a half weeks after his halting and unsteady debate performance against former President Donald Trump, which spurred widespread panic among Democrats and calls from dozens of elected officials, donors and pundits for Biden to step down as the Democratic nominee.

Because Biden dropped out before the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Democratic delegates are free to vote for other candidates, including Harris. Delegates will formally vote to select a new nominee either before or during the DNC, which will take place from Aug. 19-22 in Chicago.

Dozens of top Democrats, members of Congress and major organizations echoed Biden’s endorsement of Harris on Sunday as state parties mobilized ahead of the convention. Tennessee Democrats became the first to formally pledge delegates to Harris, Reuters first reported.

Hendrell Remus, chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party, told The 19th that in a previously scheduled delegation meeting, 70 delegates present out of 72 total voted for a motion to put their support behind Harris. (The two delegates not present were Rep. Steve Cohen, who expressed support for Harris on X, and former vice president and 2000 Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore).

“​​There were no defections or dissension or major backlash,” Remus said in a brief phone interview. “I think we were all ready for this. We are all ready for this process to swiftly wrap up and to move on and to really support Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee.”

Harris had held several campaign events and fundraisers over the past weeks on behalf of the Biden campaign, assuaging Democratic voters and donors’ anxieties over Biden’s debate performance. On Thursday, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Harris held a rally slamming Trump’s pick of Sen. JD Vance as his running mate. Before Biden dropped out, the White House said Harris would be traveling to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for a campaign event on Tuesday. It’s set to be her first campaign event as Biden’s anointed presidential candidate and the Democrats’ leading choice.

By Sunday evening, the “Biden for President” campaign had filed with the Federal Election Commission to rename itself “Harris for President,” allowing the newly formed Harris campaign to assume control of all funds already raised. As of the end of June, this amount was north of $95 million. Small-dollar donors gave $52 million to Harris’ nascent presidential campaign through the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue as of 10 p.m. Eastern, the organization said, with donations pouring in before Harris sent out a fundraising email shortly before 8 p.m. Eastern

Harris, 59, served as San Francisco district attorney and attorney general of California before being elected to the U.S. Senate from California in 2016. Biden selected her as his running mate when he ran for president in 2020, and their election to the White House made Harris the first woman and first woman of color to serve as vice president.

Throughout her career, Harris has had a special focus on two issues that have been top of mind among many voters in this election cycle: abortion and gun violence.

Harris is a strong supporter of abortion rights, an issue that she’s been far more comfortable openly championing than Biden, a Roman Catholic who personally opposed abortion rights for much of his political career and stumbled talking about the issue in the June 27 debate.

Over the past two years, Harris has been a leading voice opposing the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health that overturned the federal right to abortion under Roe v. Wade. She has held numerous official and campaign events focused on reproductive rights and in March, became the first vice president to visit an abortion clinic in Minnesota.

Last week in North Carolina, Harris took aim at the Trump-Vance ticket and Project 2025, a more than 900-page blueprint of far-right policies a future Trump administration could enact in a second term. Trump and his campaign have publicly distanced themselves from the effort, led by the Heritage Foundation, though some of its ideas are echoed in the Republican Party’s platform adopted at its convention in Milwaukee

“You cannot claim you stand for unity if you are intent on taking reproductive freedoms from the people of America and the women of America — trying to ban abortion nationwide, as they do, and restrict access to IVF and contraception, as their plan calls for,” Harris said Thursday.

She serves as the head of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, the first-ever such office established by a presidential administration. In this role, she has led national efforts to expand background checks and close gun show loopholes, has been vocal about her support of a federal red flag law, and has made a point of connecting with younger voters on their concerns about the ways in which gun violence has shaped the experiences of their generation.

In March, Harris visited Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, with a group of young adult survivors of the mass shooting that happened there in 2018. During the visit, she announced two proposals to help prevent school shooting incidents. One was the launch of the first-ever National Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) Resource Center, which serves as the first source of federal support for states in enforcing and implementing red flag laws. The other came from her calling on more states to pass red flag laws of their own and making funding and resources available to those that do so through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

The Office of Gun Violence Prevention has also worked with the Department of Education to encourage messaging about safe firearm storage as a safeguard against school shootings.

Last year, Harris launched the Fight For Our Freedoms college tour, aimed at speaking directly to young voters about some of the most pressing issues for their generation: gun safety, reproductive rights, climate change and voting rights. In March, the Biden-Harris campaign launched a Students for Biden-Harris Initiative, at which time Harris cited the importance of mobilizing young voters in this election cycle.

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