WASHINGTON: US Vice President Kamala Harris moved swiftly on Monday to try to lock up the Democratic presidential nomination, the day after President Joe Biden abandoned his re-election bid in the face of growing opposition by his own party.

Campaign officials and allies have already made hundreds of calls on her behalf, urging delegates to next month’s Democratic Party convention to join in nominating her for president in the Nov 5 election against Republican Donald Trump.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, seen as a possible rival for the Democratic nomination after Biden’s exit, endorsed Harris on Monday in a post on X, saying the vice president had her full support. Several other potential Democratic challengers, including California Governor Gavin Newsom and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, have backed Kamala Harris’s bid.

President Biden’s departure was the latest shock to a White House race that included the near-assassination of former president Trump by a gunman during a campaign stop and the nomination of Trump’s fellow hardliner, Senator James David Vance, as his running mate.

“My intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said in a statement. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party and unite our nation to defeat Donald Trump.”

Harris, who is black and Asian-American, would fashion an entirely new dynamic with Trump, 78, offering a vivid generational and cultural split-screen.

The Trump campaign has been preparing for her possible rise for weeks, sources said, and planned to try to tie her closely to Biden’s policies on immigration and the economy.

Biden, the oldest person ever to have occupied the Oval Office, said he would remain in the presidency until his term ends on Jan 20, while endorsing Harris to run in his place.

Biden’s shaky June 27 debate performance against Trump led the president’s fellow Democrats to urge him to end his run, but senior Republicans have demanded he resign from office as well, arguing that if he is not fit to campaign, he is not fit to govern.

Harris spent Sunday working the phones, dressed in a Howard University sweatshirt and eating pizza with anchovies as she spoke with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a potential vice presidential running mate, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Congressional black caucus chair Repre­sentative Steven Horsford, according to sources.

Biden’s withdrawal leaves less than four months to wage a campaign.

Trump claims that his 2020 loss to Biden was the result of fraud inspired the Jan 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol. But on Monday he questioned Democrats’ right to change candidates.

“They stole the race from Biden after he won it in the primaries,” Trump said on his Truth Social site.

Despite the early show of support for Harris, talk of an open convention when Democrats gather in Chicago on Aug 19-22 was not totally silenced.

Former president Barack Obama did not announce endorsements, although he praised Biden.

With Democrats wading into uncharted territory, Demo­cratic national committee Chair Jaime Harrison said the party would soon announce the next steps in its nomination process.

Abortion rights

Kamala Harris has been outspoken on abortion rights, an issue that resonates with younger voters and more liberal Democrats.

She is expected to stick largely to Biden’s foreign policy playbook on such issues as China, Iran and Ukraine, but could strike a tougher tone with Israel over the Gaza crisis if she tops the Democratic ticket and wins the Nov 5 election.

Proponents argue she would energise those voters, consolidate black support and bring sharp debating skills to prosecute the political case against the former president.

But some Democrats were concerned about a Harris candidacy, in part because of the weight of a long history of racial and gender discrimination in the United States, which has not elected a woman president in its nearly 250-year history.

Polls show that Harris performs no better statistically than Biden had done against Trump.

In a head-to-head match-up, Harris and Trump were tied with 44 per cent support each in a July 15-16 Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted immediately after the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump.

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2024