Democrats scramble to endorse Harris, forestall nomination fight

Top Democratic leaders rushed to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday, moving to avoid any intraparty dissent over who might succeed President Biden as the party’s nominee following his shocking withdrawal from the campaign.

Harris will have huge financial and political advantages as she works to secure the nomination. Biden endorsed her Sunday, and top officials with his campaign made clear that she will inherit his organization. But she still has hurdles to overcome before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month.

To become the first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to head a major-party presidential ticket, Harris will need to win the support of a majority of the nearly 4,000 delegates who pledged to support Biden at the Democratic National Convention. A majority of Democratic state party leaders announced their support for Harris as the nominee on Sunday evening, and delegations from several states unanimously endorsed her.

If Harris, or any other candidate who may seek the nomination, does not have enough votes, the convention will become “open,” and Democrats may need to hold several rounds of voting before choosing a nominee. Contenders would jockey behind the scenes for delegate support, campaigning as if the contest were a mini-primary.

Some delegates have said they’d like to see an open, democratic process for picking a new nominee rather than immediately anointing Harris. In the days and weeks leading up to Biden’s decision, Democratic lawmakers had conversations about the best path forward. Options included getting behind Harris or using a more open process to choose a new nominee.

Some key potential challengers to Harris, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, had previously made clear that they would not run against Harris, and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro endorsed her Sunday.

But Harris may not have a totally clear path. An adviser to Sen. Joe Manchin III, I-West Virginia, said Sunday that the senator is considering re-registering as a Democrat to compete for the presidential nomination. The adviser, Jonathan Kott, declined to share more details about Manchin’s plans at this stage.

And author Marianne Williamson, who has mounted previous long-shot campaigns to be the Democratic nominee, announced she will again seek the Democratic nomination, citing her desire for an open process.

“No one should simply be anointed to the position of nominee,” she wrote on social media Sunday.

During an all-staff Biden campaign call Sunday, the president’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, opened by restating Biden’s and Harris’s statements and saying the campaign will support Harris’s bid, according to two people on the call who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private conversations.

Rodriguez and Jen O’Malley Dillon, the chair of the Biden campaign, told staff Sunday that the campaign is built to beat Donald Trump “and that is exactly what we are going to do with Vice President Harris leading the way,” a Biden campaign official said. O’Malley Dillon said that everyone on the campaign would remain employed, the campaign official added.

O’Malley Dillon emphasized the strength of Biden and Harris’s 2020 coalition and said the campaign will work to bring the same group of voters back into the fold in November to elect Harris. Even before the debate, Biden had shown softening support among key parts of the Democratic coalition, including among progressives, young voters and people of color. Biden-Harris voters in 2020 who said they were unsure about voting for him in 2024 have cited his age, the economy, immigration and his staunch support of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Even as Democrats publicly debated whether Biden should step aside, Harris has been extraordinarily careful not to make any moves to prepare for a possible presidential bid. A number of Democratic donors independently organized an effort to start preliminary vetting of potential vice-presidential candidates, but Harris and her team weren’t involved.

In the coming days, Harris will have to rally support among Democratic lawmakers and donors, search for a vice-presidential candidate and make her case to voters who are in many cases unsure of what she does. She’ll also have to begin convincing delegates that she’s the right nominee for the party.

Daniel Hernandez, 34, a Tucson delegate who has helped the Biden-Harris campaign mobilize LGBTQ+ voters around the nation, was knocking on doors in the sweltering heat to help his sister win her own political campaign for state representative when he learned the news.

“It’s really critical that we … make sure that Vice President Kamala Harris becomes the Democratic nominee because she has the best chance at beating Donald Trump in November,” he said. He added there are “a ton of great choices” being proposed for vice president, including Sen. Mark Kelly (Arizona), Shapiro, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear or North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.

And Donna Secor Pennington, of Muskegon, Mich., a retired school social worker, said she was ecstatic about possibly having a woman at the top of the ticket, especially when it comes to issues of reproductive rights, which have proved to be a winning electoral issue for Democrats.

“I don’t know if president—oh see I’m already calling her president—if Vice President Kamala Harris will pick a vice president at the convention,” she said. “But I’ll be supporting her.”

Many delegates said they were shocked by Biden’s decision.

Maryland delegate Jheanelle Wilkins, a state lawmaker and chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, said she was in disbelief when someone dropped Biden’s letter into a group chat. “I heard so much about the president sticking with the race,” she said. “So I truly thought that he planned to stay.”

But, as the shock dissolved, Wilkins began texting other delegates about getting behind Harris.

Former Houston mayor Sylvester Turner, a delegate and longtime Texas legislator, said he was still processing the news after days of receiving campaign texts and emails urging him and other mayors to remain committed to Biden. But, he said, he would also back Harris. “For what reason would we step away from the vice president?” he asked.

Biden and Harris have yet to address the nation about the changes at the top of the Democratic Party. She spent most of Sunday afternoon calling congressional Democrats to ask for their support, according to multiple people familiar with the conversations.

Harris has called chairs of all House Democratic caucuses—the Congressional Black, Hispanic, Asian Pacific American caucuses, and the Progressive Caucus as well as the New Democrat Coalition—to ask for their groups’ support. Current and former aides have also worked the phones, calling congressional Democrats’ offices to shore up support for her.

Many House Democrats refrained from endorsing Harris on Sunday because they wanted Sunday to be about Biden and what Democrats almost uniformly characterized as his selfless and even heroic act of stepping aside to give the party the best chance of defeating Trump in November, according to multiple people familiar with House Democrats’ thinking.

Rep. Ann Kuster, D-New Hampshire, chair of the 100-member House New Democrat Coalition, said Harris called her Sunday. Kuster released a statement in strong support of Harris.

“I think we go to the convention and we nominate Kamala D. Harris and then we choose a vice president,” Kuster said in an interview. “And we come roaring out of Chicago and beat Donald Trump.”

But Biden’s swift endorsement of Harris spoke to the urgency with which Democrats feel they must unite behind a candidate less than four months until Election Day.

“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” Biden said. “Democrats—it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”

A few hours after Biden’s announcement, Harris issued a statement thanking Biden for his “selfless and patriotic act” and vowed to campaign vigorously and unite the Democratic Party in the 107 days until Election Day.

“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said. “Over the past year, I have traveled across the country, talking with Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election. And that is what I will continue to do in the days and weeks ahead.”

Harris received endorsements from several high-profile Democratic lawmakers in the wake of Biden’s announcement. The Congressional Black Caucus is expected to endorse Harris, chairman Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) told The Washington Post. Harris, a former CBC member when serving in the Senate, called Horsford on Sunday afternoon after Biden endorsed her.

“She wanted me to relay to the members of the CBC that have stood by the president and that have been behind her from the very beginning … that she intends to earn [the nomination] and win it,” Horsford said, adding that Harris sounded “very calm, very measured, very clear-eyed and resolved” during their conversation.

Democrats who had been floated as possible candidates to fill a vacancy on the party’s ticket, should one occur, responded to Biden’s news with measured respect Sunday.

Kelly, the senator from Arizona, unequivocally endorsed Harris, saying he “couldn’t be more confident that [she] is the right person to defeat Donald Trump and lead our country into the future.” Kelly also praised Biden for his “great humility” in making the decision not to seek reelection.

Several other hopefuls did not name Harris—or touch on how the Democratic Party might replace Biden—but focused instead on praising the president’s record.

Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who last week did not rule out the possibility that Biden could leave the race, warned Americans not ignore “the threat posed by Donald Trump’s potential return to the White House.”

A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll this month found 44 percent of Americans overall said they would be “satisfied” if Biden stepped aside and Harris became the Democratic nominee, including 70 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents.

In that same poll, 29 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents volunteered Harris as their choice for the party’s nomination if Biden stepped aside, while 7 percent mentioned Newsom, 4 percent named former first lady Michelle Obama and 3 percent each named Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Whitmer. Half of Democrats didn’t name anyone.

Recent polls find little difference between how Harris and Biden stack up against Trump. In a Washington Post average of 11 national polls after the first debate, Harris trailed Trump by 1.5 percentage points while Biden trailed Trump by a similar 1.9 percentage points. Four polls showed Harris polling slightly better than Biden, four slightly worse and three showed no difference.