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      ‘I was not voting before, now I am’: gen Z voters on what they think of Kamala Harris

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      American gen Z voters share how they feel about Kamala Harris’s presidential bid, why they like or dislike her as a candidate and whether they think she could beat Donald Trump, as the vice-president races towards winning the Democratic nomination for November’s election.‘I think she’s just what we need’“I think [Kamala Harris] is the only one that makes sense. She will get the votes Biden couldn’t. She could get the Black, Asian, Latino, women’s, LGBTQ+ and youth votes. She stands more for progress and equality than an old white dude and if she wins it will be historic. The Democrats need a bold move and I think she’s just what we need.“I hope the Democrats realize what an opportunity this is for them.” Will, 22, construction worker from Portland, Oregon‘We are fired up’“I have so much renewed passion and hope now that Kamala is the endorsed candidate. She made history when she was elected VP and I believe she can make history again. I get emotional just thinking about it. And despite having just purchased a new home and having hardly any extra cash lying around, my husband and I just donated $100 to a campaign for the first time this election cycle. We are fired up.“My concern is we are facing a self-fulfilling prophecy; that people think it’s an impossible task to elect a Black woman to the highest office and as a result it becomes one. I think it’s quite the opposite actually. I feel Kamala is just what we need to energize young voters and get them to the polls.” Lizzie, 28, engineer from Idaho‘I’m concerned that she is silly or not serious’“I feel mixed about it. I am a Democrat and at first I thought: ‘Oh well, we’re stuck with Joe we’ll get him elected if it means no Donald Trump.’ Then after the debate I thought: ‘Omg this guy is way too old!’ I guess Biden seemed so set on still running I thought he would never drop out. I liked Kamala when she ran back in 2020 but I’m not sure how I feel about her today.“My biggest concern with her is this perception that she is silly, or not serious. She laughs in every interview and the “You think you fell out of a coconut tree? You are the sum of everything … ” is a huge meme on TikTok. I guess I wouldn’t say it paints her in a horrible light, but I just think people don’t take her seriously.” Georgie, 25, research associate from Massachusetts‘Kamala is not perfect, but I’m more optimistic now than with Biden’“I and everyone I know are THRILLED that Kamala Harris is now leading the ticket. Joe Biden could not win. Kamala is not a perfect candidate, but she can campaign; she is running against the oldest major party nominee in history; she can make the case for a new Democratic administration. Joe Biden could do none of these things, so while I think Democrats still face an uphill battle, I am infinitely more optimistic now that we have a likely nominee who is physically and mentally capable of running an energetic campaign.“Kamala is not a perfect candidate, and I probably would have supported someone else if Biden had stepped down a year ago. I’m worried that she will struggle to differentiate herself from the administration’s policy on Gaza (as Hubert Humphrey struggled to differentiate himself from the Johnson administration’s policy on Vietnam), that she’ll be blamed for voters’ dissatisfaction with the status quo, and, of course, she will certainly face racist and sexist headwinds that Biden did not. BUT, and it’s a big ‘but’, I thought Biden was a certain loser after the debate, so even if Harris’s chances to win are 30%, that’s still better than 0%. I don’t have any concerns about her ability to do the job if elected, and I think she is perfectly capable of running a winning campaign, at least in theory.” Peter, 27, museum educator from Indiana‘That Harris was picked by delegates, not voters, is a disaster for her campaign’“I watched the 2019 debates (eg Harris’s inability to perform under pressure from opponents like Tulsi Gabbard) and her recent interviews (eg her disastrous response to Lester Holt when asked if she’d been to the border) and don’t think she’s the strongest the Democratic party can offer. She doesn’t bring the fact-based, logical responses needed to counter a populist candidate like Trump nor does she present clear policy beyond typical stump-speech moralizing.“I’d rather have Pete Buttigieg to be honest and feel deeply, horribly cheated because the Democratic candidate isn’t going to be chosen by a primary vote, instead relying on a couple thousand delegates in Chicago.“I’d feel better if she were at least chosen by the American people instead of being sweethearted because Biden picked her for VP. It all leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I’ll have a hard time backing Harris until there’s a broad-scale democratic process to ballast her presidential bid.“The Trump campaign is going to villainize Harris and the Democratic party over the lack of primary voting to support Harris’s candidacy. This narrative feeds exactly into the anti-establishment, deep-state messaging central to the Trump campaign, and the sad thing is that the Trump campaign will have a point: Harris was not picked by voters, she was picked by delegates. It’s a disaster for any campaign she’d hope to launch, and based on Harris’s past performances under fire, she will have no effective argument against Trump’s accusations.” Michelle, 26, from Wisconsin‘I think she can do great things’“It will be refreshing for someone new to take the lead. [Harris] has got experience, she is young and passionate. Let’s see if she can make positive changes. This country needs a levelheaded individual, not a pushover or tyrant. I think she can do great things.“I just hope she is smart and strong enough to not continue to support war and the crackdown on immigrants.“This country was built on the foundation of immigrants and the pursuit of fairness and equity. I don’t mind the basis of what it means to be a Republican but their agenda has really changed over the years. We need to support each other as people; I just hope others get over their greed so we can do just that.” Lee Ocasio, 28, medical assistant from New York‘I hope she’ll restore Roe v Wade’“I am anxious for the results, but if she’s got a good chance at victory, I’m in full support. I had switched back and forth on supporting a Biden withdrawal, but what’s done is done now.“I’m a little worried about her policies. From what I’ve read this far, she doesn’t seem to have much of a stance or plan for things like Palestine, immigration or inflation, but if she can restore Roe v Wade, she will have 110% of my support.” Kaleb Stanton, 24, grocery store worker from New Mexico‘She’ll be a tougher candidate to beat than Biden’“I have been worried about the lack of enthusiasm about Biden’s candidacy, particularly among young voters, and the implications that could have on turnout. Virtually all indicators have pointed to a strong economy under Biden; however, I think many young people feel like there is less opportunity for them today than there was for prior generations.“For this reason, I think it is unsurprising that there would be a lack of enthusiasm to support Biden or Trump because of their age (regardless of their ability to do the job or not).“I think that VP Harris will be a harder opponent for Republicans to run against. Consider the matchup: a 78-year-old male Republican nominee recently found guilty on felony charges, and responsible for appointing three supreme court justices that helped overturn Roe v Wade versus a 59-year-old female (likely) Democratic nominee with a background as a former prosecutor. Harris will be able to hammer Republicans on abortion/reproductive health, contrast her own ‘law & order’ background with Trump’s felon status, and offer a younger option to voters that were concerned about Biden’s (and Trump’s!) age.“I think Harris also has strengths that bring previously competitive southern states back into play in a way that Biden couldn’t in 2024. Harris would be the first female president, first female African-American president, and first Asian-American president. She represents America’s cultural melting pot in a way that no previous presidential candidate has and I believe this could help boost African- and Asian-American turnout, two historically strong Democratic voter bases that some polls have shown to be slightly wavering in their support in recent years.” Anonymous policy researcher at a thinktank in their 20s‘She appeals way more to gen Z than Biden’“[Kamala Harris] is a much better candidate for the country, and appeals way more to gen Z voters than Biden did. I was not voting before, and now I am.” Javier, 25, a gay Latino voter from New York More

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      Trump files complaint against Harris for taking over Biden’s campaign funds

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      Donald Trump’s campaign on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against the vice-president Kamala Harris, accusing her 2024 campaign of violating federal campaign finance laws by replacing Joe Biden’s name with her own to take control of his campaign funds.The complaint, filed by the Trump campaign’s general counsel, David Warrington, argued that the Biden campaign could not rename its committee from “Biden for President” to “Harris for President” once Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday, and roll over $91m.“This is little more than a thinly veiled $91.5m excessive contribution from one presidential candidate to another, that is, from Joe Biden’s old campaign to Kamala Harris’s new campaign. This effort makes a mockery of our campaign finance laws,” the eight-page complaint said.“Federal candidates are prohibited from keeping contributions for elections in which they do not participate,” it added. “Biden for President 2024 has shown no intention to properly refund or re-designate the general election funds it has already received. This makes them all excess contributions.”Whether the complaint generates traction with the FEC remains unclear, but the Trump campaign has been looking for any way to slow down the momentum Harris has been able to generate with voters and donors after she quickly became the presumptive Democratic nominee.The strategy, according to people familiar with the matter, has included opening new legal battles to try to prevent Harris from accessing Biden’s funds, although the complaint on Tuesday stopped short of a lawsuit.Warrington made that explicit request to the FEC in the complaint, asking the agency to enjoin the transfer. And if the FEC were to deem the transfer unlawful, the complaint said, it would ask the FEC to consider issuing a fine or making a criminal referral to the US justice department.The Harris campaign has viewed the FEC complaint as a spurious legal effort to throw sand in their gears, noting that the Biden-Harris committees have always been authorized committees for either Biden or Harris, according to a person familiar with the thinking.And in a statement, the Harris campaign noted that they had raised $100m in donations in the 36 hours since Biden withdrew from the 2024 race, adding: “Baseless legal claims – like the ones they’ve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections – will only distract them.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe complaint, earlier reported by the New York Times, also argued that Harris taking over Biden’s remaining campaign funds amounted to an excessive unlawful contribution given that “Biden for President” was not an authorized committee for the Harris campaign.“If Mr Biden will not seek the Democratic party’s nomination, then he will never participate in the general election and all general election contributions received by Biden for President are excessive and must be disposed of,” the complaint said. More

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      Democratic congressional leaders back Kamala Harris as campaign gains energy

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      Kamala Harris won key backing from the Democratic party’s senior congressional leadership on Tuesday as she carried the energy and momentum from her whirlwind ascent to presumptive presidential nominee into a lively first campaign rally.Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, gave the vice-president their endorsement during a lunchtime press briefing. Harris, they said, had re-energized Democrats following Joe Biden’s announcement on Sunday that he would no longer seek a second term.“We are brimming with excitement, enthusiasm, unity,” Schumer said.“In just the last 36 hours I have seen a surge of enthusiasm from every corner of our party uniting behind Vice-President Harris, an enthusiasm felt in every corner of the country. And it’s contagious among Democrats, the volunteers, the small contributions, they’re just pouring in, in ways even beyond our expectations.”Jeffries said Harris was “a commonsense leader who knows how to deliver real results for hard-working American taxpayers”.Their approval came shortly before Harris addressed cheering supporters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday afternoon in her first solo campaign appearance. Harris praised Biden, attacked the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, and predicted: “We will win this election.”“Before I was elected vice-president, before I was a US senator, I was elected attorney general of the state of California, and a courtroom prosecutor before that,” she said.“In those roles 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. And in this campaign I promise I will proudly put my record against his any day of the week.”The rally followed news that the Harris for President campaign had raised more than $100m in the day following Biden’s withdrawal, largely from first-time donors. Harris hailed it as a record: “the best 24 hours of grassroots fundraising in presidential campaign history”.It also came after confirmation on Monday night that Harris had secured the support of enough Democratic party delegates at its national convention next month to win the nomination for November’s election.Biden said in a tweet he would deliver a prime-time address to the nation on Wednesday evening to explain his decision to withdraw, and lay out a vision for his final six months in the White House.Also on Tuesday, Harris’s campaign took the first formal steps towards naming a running mate. Reports in US media outlets suggested that Harris was looking at closely at two potential candidates, the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, and the Arizona senator Mark Kelly, but had requested vetting materials from several others.They included the governors Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Tim Walz of Minnesota, and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, although Whitmer has said she would serve instead as co-chair of the campaign.A surprise omission was reported to be Kentucky’s governor, Andy Beshear, a vocal Harris acolyte. He told CNN he had not received a package from the campaign, but would “at least listen” if he was called, stressing his focus was the people of Kentucky.Eric Holder, the attorney general during Barack Obama’s administration, has been hired to vet Harris’s potential picks of her running mate, according to Reuters.The news that Harris had already begun assessing potential running mates reflects the speed at which the campaign is moving towards next month’s Democratic national convention in Chicago, at which the party’s candidates must be confirmed.A survey by the Associated Press indicated that Harris had the backing of 2,688 state delegates, far more than the 1,976 needed to become the nominee.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“When I announced my campaign for president, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination. I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee, and as a daughter of California, I am proud that my home state’s delegation helped put our campaign over the top,” Harris, a former California senator, said in a statement.“I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.”A CBS News/YouGov poll on Tuesday found that 83% of Democratic registered voters approved of Biden withdrawing from the race, while just 17% disapproved.Polls matching Harris against Trump were tighter, but showed Democrats gaining ground. Morning Consult found that the former president has 47% support nationally to Harris’s 45%, while Biden trailed Trump by six percentage points in an earlier poll.Harris entered the second full day of her campaign for the nomination in an almost unassailable position, following a breathless 24 hours that saw almost every senior party figure championing her candidacy.All 23 Democratic state governors have publicly backed Harris, including several who had been considered potential rivals for the nomination, such as Whitmer and JB Pritzker of Illinois.The rapid pace at which she racked up endorsements was matched by an avalanche of donations. More than $100m poured into campaign coffers in its first day, a spokesperson said on Monday, calling it the largest single-day haul of any presidential candidate in history and with most of the money coming from grassroots donors making their first contributions of the election cycle.Campaign officials, however, were equally enthused by the succession of heavyweight Democrats who voiced their support for Harris even before Schumer and Jeffries did so on Tuesday. Notable among them was Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, who called the vice-president “brilliantly astute” and “rooted in strong values, faith and a commitment to public service”.A number of organizing efforts are also under way on her behalf. The Win With Black Women advocacy group hosted a Zoom call for 44,000 people and raised more than $1.5m. A similar initiative involving more than 20,000 Black men on Monday pulled in at least another million.Among the high-profile endorsements to come in for Harris on Tuesday was that of George Clooney, the Hollywood actor who wrote a powerful opinion article earlier this month calling for Biden to step aside.“President Biden has shown what true leadership is. He’s saving democracy once again. We’re all so excited to do whatever we can to support Vice-President Harris in her historic quest,” he said in a statement. More

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      Netanyahu upstaged by Biden and Harris on highly anticipated US visit

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      Benjamin Netanyahu expected to land in Washington DC this week with a bang. So far, it has been more of a whimper.The Israeli prime minister has kept a low profile in the US capital, which was stunned by Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday to drop out of the presidential race and endorse his vice-president, Kamala Harris, to challenge Donald Trump.Netanyahu’s first 24 hours have seen a series of small meetings with the families of hostages kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October, in which he said that progress was being made on negotiating a prisoner exchange of the remaining 120 hostages as part of a ceasefire deal but defended delaying for better terms.“I say at the outset that this will be a process – unfortunately it’s not all at once, there will be stages,” he said, according to remarks of the meeting published by the Times of Israel, “but I believe that we can move a deal forward and maintain the means of pressure that can bring about the release of the others.”Some of those in the room were family members that Netanyahu had himself brought to Washington onboard his official jet.Netanyahu however cautioned that the way to reach the deal would be by continuing to apply pressure to Hamas, even as some families of hostages have urged Netanyahu to conclude the deal as quickly as possible. Others have lobbied the Biden administration to put pressure on Netanyahu to cut a deal.“In no circumstance am I willing to give up on victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said. “If we let up, we will be in danger from all of Iran’s evil axis.”A day into his trip, Netanyahu had not publicly met any US officials, and his meeting with Biden, who is recovering from Covid-19, was rescheduled to Thursday. Trump said he would meet the Israeli prime minister on Friday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. No timings for meetings have been released with Harris.And Biden will address the nation on Wednesday evening, upstaging the Israeli PM once again just hours after Netanyahu was set to deliver an address to a joint session of Congress.“I think Netanyahu was dismayed that he’s not the center of attention,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who focuses on US foreign policy and the Middle East. “He’s not the center of attention here because of what Biden did and what’s going on with Kamala. And he’s certainly not the center of the attention in Israel.”On Tuesday, Netanyahu is set to meet with leaders of the US evangelical Christian community, then hold an event with leaders of the local Jewish community, according to his office.Dozens of Democratic lawmakers were planning to boycott the speech to Congress on Wednesday afternoon. Harris will not be attending, which an aide said was because of a scheduling conflict. According to his public schedule, Netanyahu will meet with the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, before the speech.Some hostage family members have said they hope that Netanyahu would use the visit to Washington to announce a ceasefire deal, which Biden had said was already agreed on as a “framework”.“We fully expect that his speech is going to be the announcement of this hostage deal that we’ve all been waiting for,” said Jon Polin, the father of one of the hostages, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, during a separate press conference of the families of hostage members in Washington.Yet analysts have said that Netanyahu may be relying on the war to divert attention from his own political difficulties, or could be delaying a deal until the domestic turmoil in the US resolves and the next president is chosen.“Benjamin Netanyahu’s world is political survival,” said Miller. “That’s his prime directive. That is what drives him and motivates him.“I don’t think there’s anything Kamala can do or Biden can do or not do, frankly, that’s going to alter Netanyahu decision making” on the ceasefire, he said. “He will do this based on whether or not he thinks he can get away with it politically.” More

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      Biden’s trajectory is a Shakespearean tragedy. Clooney can play the president | Sidney Blumenthal

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      George Clooney can now play Joe Biden in the movie. After he urged the president to quit the race, the penultimate scene became greater than any Hollywood ending. The actor, while the King of Hollywood, has not yet won an Oscar for a leading role. This part, though, drawing on a range of classic genres, moving from pathos to tragedy to triumph, will challenge his dramatic skills as never before.The curtain rises on Biden as Richard II, beleaguered and beset, facing his overthrow from within.
      What must the king do now? Must he submit?
      The king shall do it: must he be deposed?
      The king shall be contented: must he lose
      The name of king? o’ God’s name, let it go
      The Shakespearean inevitability seems overwhelming, tragedy heaped upon tragedy with a comic thread: the plotting against him from Julius Caesar, his rages against fate from King Lear, and reality suspended with a touch of A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Then in a thunderclap the drama turns romantic through Byron’s Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte.
      Tis done – but yesterday a King
      And arm’d with Kings to strive –
      And now thou art a nameless thing
      So abject – yet alive!
      In 2011, Clooney wrote the screenplay for a film called The Ides of March in which he played an idealistic Pennsylvania governor and Democratic presidential candidate reacting to cynical plots and subplots. The New York Times called it “less an allegory of the American political process than a busy, foggy, mildly entertaining antidote to it”. Clooney did receive an Oscar nomination for his writer’s credit but no more.Now he can play in something other than a belabored story of the supposed price idealism pays to ambition. Now he can sink his teeth into a far more complicated starring role, following a far richer storyline.The film begins with a bright young star of the post-JFK generation from a middle-class background with an unusual common touch yet stricken by unspeakable tragedy and trauma. His wife and daughter are killed in a car accident, and his two sons are critically injured. Though just elected to the Senate at the age of 29, one of the youngest ever, he devotes himself to his sons. He travels daily on the train from Washington to his home in Delaware to watch over them, while still establishing himself as a peer among his fellow senators despite his youthful age.In the second arc, Biden launches a campaign for his party’s presidential nomination but wrecks his chance by borrowing the identities of various political figures put into his mouth by overheated media consultants. His earnest ambition is undone by trivial mendacity, his promise upended by careless overreaching.Then he is the chair of the US Senate judiciary committee, seeking respect, comity and bipartisan cooperation, presiding over the nomination of a US supreme court nominee who perjures himself about his sexual harassment of an employee. In the interest of misguided fairness, the senator suppresses the evidence of two corroborating witnesses.Again, he runs for his party’s nomination, now the even more powerful and knowledgeable chair of the Senate foreign relations committee, but he wins less than 1% of the vote in the Iowa caucus and glumly drops out. A charismatic up-and-comer who had served hardly any time in the Senate emerges victorious, then lifts the loser from the depth of his political despair to make him his perfectly complementary running mate.Biden emerges as a substantive vice-president, the consummate negotiator with Congress to help enact the signature achievement of the administration, the long-held dream of national health insurance. But, again, personal tragedy strikes. His beloved son, Beau, rising in politics after a military career, whom his father had pinned for a trajectory to the White House, attaining what he could not, contracts brain cancer and dies. As Biden copes with his grief, the president passes over him as his chosen successor to anoint another, who narrowly loses to a vile grifter posing as a man of the people.Again, Biden appears to stumble out of the gate yet in another run, but regains his footing. He is the only one who can bridge the whole of the party. As hundreds of thousands die during a plague-like pandemic, the economy withers. He stands as a figure of empathy and solidity against the malignant narcissist in the Oval Office. At last, when Biden wins the prize, Donald Trump stages an insurrection to prevent the certification of the election and departs in disgrace.Despite razor-thin margins in the Congress, he passes the most far-ranging legislation since the Great Society, manages the economy through its complex hazards, expands the western alliance in the teeth of Vladimir’s Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, and gets little credit. He is healing the world, but the toxicity lingers. He is blamed for his extraordinary but incomplete success. Trump rises from his ruins to be acclaimed through willfully blind nostalgia.Once too young for his responsibility, Biden is assailed as too old to hold it. There is a bit of The Last Hurrah about his last campaign, also played by Spencer Tracy in the film based on the Edwin O’Connor novel of an old Irish-American Boston mayor who, on his deathbed, responding to the talk around him that he would have done it all differently if he could live his life over, says as his last words: “Like hell I would.”Against the tide of criticism for months, Biden knows he is not suffering from cognitive decline that affects his judgment as president. He is handling the crises around the globe with skill and experience, the master of foreign policy. He has defeated the menace of Trump before. But he has occasional lapses from natural aging. He tires; he forgets a name or place. His childhood stutter seems to have made a partial return as he pauses to form and explain his thoughts. He has taken cognitive tests, previously unknown to the public, that demonstrate he has no underlying condition. But he assumed the burden of running again out of a sense of duty that he is best able to meet the troubled times.He stubbornly resists and takes umbrage at the chorus of criticism at his obvious aging, his halting and slow gait from a broken foot early in his presidency he didn’t properly treat and his sometimes broken sentences. In his mind, he’s saving the country.He offers an early debate to dispel what he considers the smears of his disability. He and his staff are certain he can repeat his adroit State of the Union appearance. But he falters and loses his place and looks painfully old. He makes subsequent public appearances to put the lie to his collapse as just “a bad night”. After a successful Nato summit, at a press conference he displays his intricate knowledge and management of foreign policy. Yet the press is not quelled. Pundits describe him as clinging to power as a selfish old man, his refusal to leave proving he’s as bad as Trump.Nancy Pelosi, now the speaker emerita, as she calls herself, still the regnant monarch of the Congress, recognizes his flaw as fatal political decline. She orchestrates a slow process of persuasion, of regretful statements from a trickle of members urging him to withdraw, which threatens to become a torrent.Barack Obama, muffled behind the curtain, lends his assent, if not by silence, to the critics. His multitude of former aides, spread throughout the media as kibitzers, have raised their voices as a chorus of Biden naysayers. Obama does not wave off Clooney, the actor casting himself the party broker. Biden feels betrayed. He is given to bouts of self-pitying, defiant and angry cries, but these do not hold off the ranks from further dividing or the walls from closing in.On 13 July, an assassin nicks Trump at a rally. The terrible event gives him the unprecedented possibility at the Republican convention to appear as a transformed figure. He could use his narrow escape to reveal an inner conversion. But after his entrance to the lights flashing his name, like the old Elvis in Las Vegas, after describing what happened to him when the bullet went by his head, he reverted to the fossilized Trump. For a droning hour and a half, he fell into his lounge act of canned jokes and insults. Since then, he has declined further into his decadent routine. At his first rally since Butler, he went on about Nancy Pelosi as a “dog” and “crazy as a bedbug”, Kamala Harris as “crazy”, and Biden as “stupid”. His encounter with death could not alter his character. With each slur and slight, Trump shrinks himself.Biden catches Covid-19. He retreats to his home in Delaware. He contemplates his mortality in the scale of his duty. He can read the polls. He comes to the epiphany that he could achieve his aims only by relinquishing his pride. He rose to the figure in Byron’s Ode:
      Where may the wearied eye repose
      When gazing on the Great;
      Where neither guilty glory glows,
      Nor despicable state?
      Yes – one – the first – the last – the best –
      The Cincinnatus of the West,
      Whom envy dared not hate,
      Bequeath’d the name of Washington,
      To make man blush there was but one!
      When George III learned that George Washington would resign after his term, voluntarily give up the office of the presidency to establish the principle of a peaceable transfer of power and preserve the American Republic, the King remarked: “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

      Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Kamala Harris to visit Wisconsin in first rally since launching presidential campaign – live

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      Kamala Harris is travelling to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, today where she will hold her first campaign rally since she launched her presidential campaign on Sunday with Joe Biden’s endorsement. Biden won Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes in the 2020 election, and recent polling had suggested a tight race between Biden and Donald Trump in the battleground state again.Tuesday’s visit was scheduled before Biden ended his campaign, but took on new resonance as Harris prepared to take up the mantle of her party against Trump, who is scrambling to pivot his campaign against the vice-president.According to Wisconsin Democratic party chair Ben Wikler, 89 of Wisconsin’s 95 delegates, including senator Tammy Baldwin and governor Tony Evers, had already pledged their support for Harris as of yesterday afternoon.After confirming the state Democratic Party had officially backed Harris for the nomination, Wikler was quoted by Wisconsin Public Radio as saying:
      And in hearing from elected officials across the state of Wisconsin, hearing from Democratic Party activists, hearing from donors, there is a surge of focus, of enthusiasm – a kind of flowering of the kind of unity that we’re going to need to defeat Donald Trump.
      During her visit to Wisconsin today (see post at 10.14), Kamala Harris is to be joined by major elected officials in the state, including governor Tony Evers, senator Tammy Baldwin, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, attorney general Josh Kaul, secretary of state Sarah Godlewski and Wisconsin Democratic party chair Ben Wikler, as well as state labor leaders.House Democrats and Republicans will meet separately today for the first time since the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on 13 July and Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the presidential race on Sunday, Chad Pergram, the senior congressional correspondent for Fox News, has posted on X. He said there will be a House hearing today on the shooting at Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.Kamala Harris is travelling to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, today where she will hold her first campaign rally since she launched her presidential campaign on Sunday with Joe Biden’s endorsement. Biden won Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes in the 2020 election, and recent polling had suggested a tight race between Biden and Donald Trump in the battleground state again.Tuesday’s visit was scheduled before Biden ended his campaign, but took on new resonance as Harris prepared to take up the mantle of her party against Trump, who is scrambling to pivot his campaign against the vice-president.According to Wisconsin Democratic party chair Ben Wikler, 89 of Wisconsin’s 95 delegates, including senator Tammy Baldwin and governor Tony Evers, had already pledged their support for Harris as of yesterday afternoon.After confirming the state Democratic Party had officially backed Harris for the nomination, Wikler was quoted by Wisconsin Public Radio as saying:
      And in hearing from elected officials across the state of Wisconsin, hearing from Democratic Party activists, hearing from donors, there is a surge of focus, of enthusiasm – a kind of flowering of the kind of unity that we’re going to need to defeat Donald Trump.
      As we have already reported, Kamala Harris has earned enough delegates to become the likely Democratic party nominee, after California delegates voted unanimously to endorse her.Several state delegations met on Monday evening to confirm their support for the vice president, including Texas and her home state of California. By Monday night, Harris had the support of more than the 1,976 delegates she needs to win on a first ballot, according to a tally by the Associated Press. No other candidate was named by a delegate contacted by the AP.California state Democratic chairman, Rusty Hicks, said 75% to 80% of the state’s delegation were on a call on Tuesday, all supporting Harris.“I’ve not heard anyone mentioning or calling for any other candidate,” Hicks said, adding “tonight’s vote was a momentous one”.Hicks had urged delegates to quickly line up behind Harris and had circulated an online form to submit endorsements.Daniel Boffey is the Guardian’s chief reporterThe spectacle of the Olympic Games opening ceremony could be overshadowed by the human drama in the White House after it was confirmed that Jill Biden will attend the event on the Seine.It will be a first appearance on the world stage for the president’s wife since her husband withdrew from his re-election campaign over concerns about his deteriorating health.Rumours had swirled in Paris that the first lady could pull out of the games at the last minute with some suggesting that she might even be replaced by vice president Kamala Harris whose husband, Douglas Emhoff, is leading the delegation at the closing ceremony.The White House, however, confirmed on Monday evening that Jill Biden would lead a delegation of seven other senior US figures at the opening ceremony, including the US ambassador to France, Denise Campbell Bauer, senators Chris Coons and Alex Padilla, and the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass.Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race on Sunday sets the stage to end a nearly five-decade run when either a Bush, Clinton or Biden was on the ballot for president or vice-president.USA today reports:
      Members of the Bush and Clinton families, along with Joe Biden, have been on every presidential election ticket since 1980, when Ronald Reagan and running mate George HW Bush won.
      Reagan and Bush easily won reelection in 1984 before Bush won the presidency himself in 1988.
      The next four elections would feature either a Bush or Clinton on the ballot, with Bill Clinton defeating George HW Bush in 1992, before defeating Bob Dole in 1996, and George W. Bush winning elections in 2000 and 2004.
      The following four elections (2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020) all had Biden or Hillary Clinton on the ballot, with Barack Obama and Joe Biden winning election in the first two contests, Hillary Clinton losing to Donald Trump in 2016 and Biden defeating Trump in 2020.
      Ed Pilkington is chief reporter for Guardian USWhen Joe Biden finally ends his self-imposed seclusion at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, this week he will emerge into a very different world than the one from which he isolated when diagnosed with Covid last Wednesday.He will still be president of the United States, and as such the most powerful person on Earth. But it may not feel like that to him. His hopes of carrying on in that office died at 1.46pm ET on Sunday when he announced that he was standing down from the 2024 race.Very little is known about Biden’s specific plans for the next six months. Given the speed at which the final demise of his campaign happened, he may not know much himself.What we do know is that attempts by Donald Trump and his inner circle to force him out of the Oval Office now, on grounds that “if he can’t run for office, he can’t run our country”, are as half-hearted as they sound. Barring surprises, Biden will remain in the White House until noon on 20 January 2025.You can read the full analysis piece here:Donald Trump is due to appear on professional golfer Bryson DeChambeau’s YouTube show on Tuesday for a “special episode”.In a post on X, DeChambeau said the Republican presidential nominee will appear on his Break 50 show.The golfer’s show will be donating $10,000 to the Wounded Warrior Project for every stroke they score under par, according to the X post.DeChambeau said Tuesday’s episode “is about golf and giving back to our nation’s veterans, not politics”.The post added:
      A few weeks ago I reached out to both parties’ presidential campaigns and @realDonaldTrump was down for the challenge. It is an incredible honor to be able to enjoy a round of golf with any sitting or former president, and all have an open invitation to join me for a round of Break 50 anytime.
      A new CBS News/YouGov poll found that 83% of Democratic registered voters surveyed approved of the US president, Joe Biden, withdrawing from the race while just 17% disapproved.Four in ten registered Democrats said Biden exiting makes them more motivated to vote now he is out of the race, with 79% thinking the party should nominate the US vice president, Kamala Harris, as a replacement, according to the poll.45% of those surveyed believe the party’s chances of beating Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, in November have improved since Biden’s announcement, though 10% say the electoral prospects have got worse for the Democrats, while 28% say it depends on who the nominee is and 17% say a change in candidate won’t make a difference.Democratic voters have long had doubts about Biden’s reelection bid. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in January, while the party’s nomination contest was still under way, 49% of Democrats said the 81-year-old should not run again in 2024.Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has told families of the estimated 116 hostages still held in Gaza that a deal that would secure their loved ones’ release could be nearing, his office has said.“The conditions are undoubtedly ripening. This is a good sign,” Netanyahu told the families on Monday in Washington, where he is expected to meet Joe Biden later this week after making an address to Congress.It will be Biden’s first meeting with a foreign leader since he opted not to run for reelection and endorsed vice president Kamala Harris as his successor as the Democratic presidential nominee. Harris is to meet Netanyahu, who is under increasing pressure from much of the Israeli public to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza, this week separate from Biden’s meeting.Efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire deal, outlined by Biden in May and mediated by Egypt and Qatar, have gained momentum over the past month.Israeli protesters are calling for a deal with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, which would free the hostages in exchange for a pause in fighting. Negotiators from Israel’s the Mossad intelligence service are expected in Qatar later this week, continuing talks that have dragged since early this year.Democrats are urging Kamala Harris to consider choosing her potential running mate from the so-called battleground states, which this year are: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.“That is the first presidential decision that vice president Harris has, so she’s got a lot of good choices ahead of her,” senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told reporters at the Capitol, according to the Hill.He listed a number of Democratic governors as possible choices – Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Roy Cooper of North Carolina, alongside transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg (who has deep ties in Michigan) and senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. Here is a useful explainer on who else could be Harris’ running mate for the November election:Andrew Roth is in Washington for the Guardian, and has this analysis on how Kamala Harris will tread a careful path on Israel and Gaza while Benjamin Netanyahu is in the US:For much of Monday, no meetings between Benjamin Netanyahu and either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris had been confirmed, even though the Israeli PM had already departed for the US and was scheduled on Wednesday to address a joint session of Congress at the request of the House leader, Mike Johnson.Harris appears likely to skip that session, where she would have sat directly behind Netanyahu as the president of the Senate. She will be out of Washington for a public event at a college sorority in Indiana.Late on Monday, an aide to Harris said that both she and Biden would sit down with Netanyahu in separate meetings at the White House and denied that her travel to Indianapolis indicated any change in her position towards Israel.Harris backers and insiders say that she is more likely to engage in public criticism of Netanyahu than Biden and to focus attention on the civilian toll among Palestinians from the war in Gaza – even if she would maintain US military aid and other support for Israel that has been a mainstay of Biden’s foreign policy.“The generational difference between Biden and Harris is a meaningful difference in how one looks at these issues,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel lobbying group that has endorsed Harris’s presidential bid.Read more of Andrew Roth’s analysis here: As Netanyahu arrives in Washington, Kamala Harris treads a careful path on Israel and GazaThat’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. My colleague Yohannes Lowe will take it from here. More

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      Kamala Harris earns enough delegate support to become Democratic nominee

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      Kamala Harris has said she is looking forward to “formally accepting the [presidential] nomination” of the Democratic party after she earned enough support from delegates including hundreds from her native California.“When I announced my campaign for President, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination,” she said in a statement late Monday.“Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee, and as a daughter of California, I am proud that my home state’s delegation helped put our campaign over the top. I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.”Speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi made the motion to endorse Harris for president at a virtual meeting of California’s DNC delegation on Monday evening, a spokesperson confirmed.Pelosi, who represents San Francisco in Congress, announced that with the endorsement of California’s delegation, Harris had earned enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination for president in August.Earlier on Monday, top Democrats rallied to support Harris in their bid to defeat Republican Donald Trump.Harris was headed to the battleground state of Wisconsin on Tuesday as her campaign for the White House kicks into high gear. The event in Milwaukee will be her first full-fledged campaign event since announcing her candidacy.She offered a sense of how she plans to attack Trump in a speech to campaign staff in Wilmington, Delaware earlier on Monday, referring to her past of pursuing “predators” and “fraudsters” as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general.“So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type,” she said of her rival, a convicted felon who was found liable for sexual assault in civil court. Other courts have found fraud was committed in his business, charitable foundation and private university.She also cast herself as a defender of economic opportunity and abortion access. “Our fight for the future is also a fight for freedoms,” she said. “The baton is in our hands.”Biden, who is recovering from Covid-19 at his house in Rehoboth, spoke by phone to the staff first, saying he would be out on the campaign trail for Harris and adding: “I’ll be doing whatever Kamala Harris wants me or needs me to do.”When Harris took the microphone to address staff, Biden said to her: “I love you, kid.” Harris put her hands on her heart and said: “I love you, Joe.”Joe Biden’s departure freed his delegates to vote for whomever they choose at next month’s convention. And Harris, whom Biden backed after ending his candidacy, worked quickly to secure support from a majority.Big-name endorsements on Monday, including from governors Wes Moore of Maryland, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, JB Pritzker of Illinois and Andy Beshear of Kentucky, left a vanishing list of potential rivals.According to an Associated Press tally, Harris had 2,668 delegates, well beyond the simple majority of 1,976 needed to clinch the nomination on the first ballot.The survey is unofficial, the AP said, as Democratic delegates are free to vote for the candidate of their choice when the party formally chooses its candidate. Delegates could still change their minds before 7 August but nobody else received any votes in the AP survey, and 57 delegates said they were undecided.Pelosi, who had been one of the notable holdouts, initially encouraging a primary to strengthen the eventual nominee, said she was lending her “enthusiastic support” to Harris’s effort to lead the party.Pelosi said: “Politically, 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.”A tweet late on Monday night announced that Pelosi’s office had confirmed Harris’s endorsement.Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison vowed that the party would deliver a presidential nominee by 7 August. A virtual nominating process before the national convention in Chicago, beginning on 19 August, is still needed.“I want to assure you that we are committed to an open and fair nominating process,” Harrison said on a conference call.The DNC had said earlier that a virtual vote would take place between 1 and 5 August, in order to have the nomination process completed by 7 August, the date by which Ohio law had required a nominee to be in place to make the state’s ballot.Ohio lawmakers subsequently pushed back the deadline to 1 September, but party officials said they hoped to beat the 7 August deadline to avoid any legal risk in the state.Winning the nomination is only the first item on a staggering political to-do list for Harris after Biden’s decision to exit the race, which she learned about on a Sunday morning call with the president.She must also pick a running mate and pivot a massive political operation to boost her candidacy instead of Biden’s with just over 100 days until election day.But Harris has also been raking in campaign contributions. Her campaign said on Monday she had raised $81m since Biden stepped aside on Sunday, nearly equalling the $95m that the Biden campaign had in the bank at the end of June.Hollywood donors ended their “Dembargo” on political donations, as fundraisers and celebrities from rapper Cardi B to Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis and TV producer Shonda Rhimes endorsed Harris.Wisconsin, where Harris will campaign on Tuesday, is among a trio of Rust-Belt states that include Michigan and Pennsylvania widely considered as must-wins for any candidate, and where Biden was lagging Trump.“There are independents and young people who did not like their choices, and Harris has a chance to win them,” said Paul Kendrick, executive director of the Democratic group Rust Belt Rising, which does routine polling in the battleground states where voting preferences can swing either way.Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report More