Democrats’ presidential campaign redux: Kamala Harris’s manifesto
Kamala Harris has launched her presidential campaign against Donald Trump with a savage attack on his character as Joe Biden urged Americans to ‘embrace’ the woman the former president branded ‘dumb as a rock’.
Kamala Harris launched her presidential campaign against Donald Trump with a savage attack on his character as Joe Biden urged Americans to “embrace” the woman the former president branded “dumb as a rock”.
In the first day of a recast US presidential contest, Ms Harris effectively clinched her party’s nomination as its candidate after party elder Nancy Pelosi endorsed her, and all of her most significant potential rivals backed her candidacy to take on the former Republican president.
The 59-year-old Vice-President used her first big moment in the public spotlight to attack Mr Trump over tax, social welfare, abortion and his character.
Referring to her previous career as a California prosecutor she said: “I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.” At her first official campaign rally on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) in Milwaukee, in swing state Wisconsin, she was set to focus on the politically explosive issue of abortion, after Mr Trump praised the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe vs Wade, the federal right to the procedure.
While Ms Harris was at Democrat presidential campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday, Mr Biden dialled in to call on voters to “embrace her, she’s the best”.
In his first public comments since he abandoned the presidential race, Mr Biden, who still sounded unwell as he recovered from a bout of Covid at his holiday home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. said: “I’m not going anywhere.
“I know yesterday’s news was surprising and hard for you to hear, but it was the right thing to do. I know it’s hard because you poured your heart and soul into me to help us win this thing.
“The name has changed at the top of the ticket, but the mission hasn’t changed at all.
“I’m going to be out there on the campaign with her, with Kamala. I’m going to be working like hell, both as a sitting president getting legislation passed as well as campaigning.
“You know, we still need to save this democracy, and Trump is still a danger to the community. He’s a danger to the nation.”
Ms Harris said of Joe and Jill Biden: “They truly are like family to us,” to which Mr Biden responded: “It’s mutual. I’m watching you, kid. I love you,” increasing the chances the outgoing President would campaign for his deputy in what could have been an acrimonious relationship after he was persuaded to drop out of the race.
Just 24 hours after Mr Biden quit the presidential race and endorsed his Vice-President, Mr Harris was endorsed by a vast range of Democrats, donors, governors, state delegates and interest groups.
Former Speaker Ms Pelosi, who masterminded Mr Biden’s departure, said: “Today, it is with immense pride and limitless optimism for our country’s future that I endorse Vice-President Kamala Harris for President of the United States. Make no mistake: Kamala Harris as a woman in politics is brilliantly astute – and I have full confidence that she will lead us to victory in November.”
The 84-year-old Democrat powerbroker reportedly made it clear to the President that his departure could be engineered “the easy way or the hard way”, one anonymous, informed Democrat told Politico. “She gave them three weeks of the easy way. It was about to be the hard way.”
Hours earlier, Ms Harris’s last potentially formidable opponent, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, said Ms Harris had her “full support”.
“In Vice-President Harris, Michigan voters have a presidential candidate they can count on. She’s a former prosecutor, a champion for reproductive freedom and I know she’s got Michigan’s back,” Ms Whitmer wrote.
Mr Trump attacked the “fake news media” on Monday for trying “to turn Dumb as a Rock Kamala Harris from a totally failed and insignificant Vice President into a future ‘Great’ President” amid a series of posts on social media that tried to talk up his chances of defeating her.
In his first interview with new running mate JD Vance, recorded a day before Mr Biden withdrew, the former president blasted Ms Harris as “incompetent”, saying it “didn’t matter” who was the Democrat candidate.
Polling and betting market data suggest Ms Harris will do at least as well as Mr Biden, being within the margin of error in head-to-head match-ups with Mr Trump, prompting some concern in Republican ranks that the GOP had successfully engineered the political demise of their best chance to win the White House in November.
As Ms Harris appeared on track to win the majority of Mr Biden’s former party delegates to formally secure the nomination, three more governors of battleground states in the Midwest – Minnesota’s Tim Walz, Wisconsin’s Tony Evers and Illinois’s JB Pritzker – also endorsed her, following endorsements a day earlier from governors of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Kentucky.
She had garnered the support of more than 2660 delegates by Monday night, well over the half she needs to win the nomination on the first round of voting at the convention, according to Associated Press.
Ms Harris, a Californian, is expected to choose a running mate from the Midwest to balance her ticket, reportedly among top contenders including Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro and North Carolina’s Roy Cooper.
Two other high-profile potential contenders, Californian Governor Gavin Newsom and Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg have already endorsed Ms Harris. No Democrat has so far said they will challenge her.
The Democrats must formally nominate a replacement for Mr Biden by August 7 ahead of the formal nominating convention that kicks off in Chicago on August 19.
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