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When Joe Biden addressed the NAACP convention in Las Vegas last week, one of his biggest applause lines – a line that set off chants of “Four more years!” – was when he praised Kamala Harris as “not only a great vice-president” but someone who “could be president of the United States”.Now she has that chance.On Sunday, when the president made the extraordinary decision to end his re-election campaign, he made an equally momentous choice: to offer his “full support and endorsement” of Harris to be the Democratic nominee and take on Donald Trump in November.“It’s time to come together and beat Trump,” the 81-year-old president said. “Let’s do this.”The announcement, just weeks before the Democrats are set to formally choose their nominee at the convention in Chicago, has plunged an already tumultuous contest deeper into unchartered waters – while thrusting his would-be successor into the spotlight.“I am honored to have the president’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said. “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.”With just over 100 days until the November election, the task before her is monumental and unprecedented. An assassination attempt on Trump has united Republicans behind him, and appears to have strengthened his hand as Democrats dissolved into a rancorous debate over Biden’s fitness to serve.The question of who would replace Biden has consumed Democrats and party strategists, allowing for an intense public discussion over whether Harris would be the strongest candidate to defeat Trump in November.The US-born daughter of immigrants, Harris spent much of her career as a prosecutor, before becoming California’s attorney general, overseeing the nation’s second largest justice system. In 2016, she was elected to the US Senate, becoming the first south Asian American and only the second Black woman to serve in the chamber, where she distinguished herself for asking tough questions of Trump-era political nominees.Many of Harris’s supporters say she is the obvious heir apparent to Biden. She is also the administration’s strongest messenger on abortion rights, a top issue for many voters, especially women.But her skeptics point to her failed 2019 bid for the Democratic nomination, which lacked cohesion and vision, and her shaky start to the vice-presidency, which opened her to withering Republican criticism. Some Democrats are not necessarily opposed to Harris, but believe she would benefit from an open competition – rather than a “coronation” – to prove to party skeptics, donors and voters she is the best candidate for the job.They say a fast primary campaign would showcase to the American people that Harris is best person for the job, and give would-be contenders a chance to compete – or at least debut as potential running mates.By anointing Harris, Biden has greatly tipped the scale in her favor. But it does not automatically make her the nominee.Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, called the situation “unprecedented” but said the party was committed to carrying out a “transparent and orderly process”.In a remarkable change of course after weeks of infighting, Democrats rushed to throw their support behind Harris, including a wide swath of members of Congress; Hillary Clinton, the first major female presidential nominee; and some would-be opponents like Gavin Newsom, the governor of California; Pete Buttigieg, the secretary of transportation; and Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor. On Monday, Joe Manchin, the one-time Democratic senator turned independent, said he had no plans to vie for the party’s presidential nomination.Harris has a handful of advantages over other potential challengers. She has been vetted at the national level and has good name recognition. As Biden’s running mate, she would also likely inherit key parts of his campaign, which includes a large war chest of donor funding and massive field operation.On Sunday, Biden’s campaign fund was renamed “Harris for President”, a filing with the Federal Elections Commission showed. As of Saturday, the campaign had nearly $96m cash on hand, according to the FEC. And donors who abandoned Biden in an effort to push him from the race could restart their contributions to a presidential campaign led by a younger candidate.Harris may also benefit from Democrats’ desperate desire to unite quickly and turn the focus back on Trump, whom they view as an existential threat to American democracy.Trump has repeatedly mocked Harris, assailing her intelligence and her laugh, while mispronouncing her first name. On Sunday, Trump called Harris “as much of a joke” as Biden, and said she had been “complicit” in covering up the president’s decline.View image in fullscreen“Harris has been the enabler-in-chief for Crooked Joe this entire time. They own each other’s records, and there is no distance between the two,” he said.The former president has a history of amplifying racist and sexist conspiracies about Harris, including a birther lie that suggested, falsely, she might be ineligible to serve as president.The independent candidate Robert F Kennedy also attacked Harris as a “war hawk” on Ukraine and China, and accused her of holding one of the “worst civil rights records of any public official”.Republicans have said they were prepared for a torrent of opposition research on Harris, stemming from her failed 2020 campaign and her years as vice-president.If the attacks ramp up, they could play on Harris’s vulnerabilities. Recent polling that considered a hypothetical matchup between Harris and Trump found her running close to or stronger than Biden nationally and in the battleground states.Like Biden, Harris is unpopular, though her approval rating has ticked up slightly in the weeks since the party began pressuring Biden to withdraw, following his disastrous debate.“She’s the most unpopular vice-president since Dan Quayle – and Dan Quayle is the most unpopular-vice president since Aaron Burr,” Frank Luntz, a pollster and consultant, said recently. Burr, remembered as the vice-president who mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton, served under Thomas Jefferson at the turn of the 19th century.Harris’s supporters say her historic nomination could help inspire and mobilize Democrats who had so far been disillusioned by their options.Santiago Mayer, executive director of the Democratic-aligned Voters of Tomorrow, said Harris’s tour of US college campuses was “incredibly well-received” and helped her understand the unique needs of young people, who polls show are disillusioned with the entire political system.“We saw the ‘Kamalove’ that gen Z feels for her and we’re incredibly excited to have a younger, more diverse face representing the incredibly successful and pro youth Biden Harris agenda,” he said, pointing to the “coconut tree” memes spreading online in an ironic but earnest show of support.At nearly every stage of her career, Harris has broken barriers, and should she win the nomination, “the nation will watch a multiracial woman compete in a presidential general election for the first time in history,” said Debbie Walsh, director of Center for American Women and Politics. “This transformative moment will forever alter how Americans view leadership in politics.”Biden’s decision to withdraw, and Harris’s commitment to seeking the presidential nomination, means the Democratic ticket is also in need of a vice-presidential candidate. Should Harris be the nominee, several names have been floated including the Arizona senator Mark Kelly, who endorsed the vice-president on Sunday, as well as the governors of Kentucky, Andy Beshear; Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, who also endorsed Harris; and North Carolina, Roy Cooper.Democratic groups had already organized an effort to boost Harris’s image and defend her against the Trump attacks that would have come regardless of her position on the ticket. Among them is Way to Win, a Democratic donor network that endorsed Harris.Tory Gavito, the organization’s president and co-founder, said the vice-president performed especially well with young people and voters of color, key constituencies that Democrats have struggled to excite.With Biden’s decision to pass the torch to Harris, she likened the Democratic party to an Olympic sprinter crouching at the starting line.“All this wait period has just given us that sort of kinetic energy to now run,” she said. “And I think it’s going to just un-tap a bunch of enthusiasm that gets us ready for November.”Read more about Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 election:

Joe Biden drops out and endorses Kamala Harris

Democrats praise Biden and Republicans go on the offense

Who will replace Biden? How does the process work?

A look back at Joe Biden’s life in politics More

It’s been more than 50 years since delegates to a Democratic national convention haven’t known their nominee as they walked through the door. Now, in the wake of Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday not to seek re-election, there’s a mad dash.Delegates are due to convene in Chicago on 19 August, and while the Democratic party seems to be coalescing around Kamala Harris, there’s no guarantee that she will be the nominee, and others could still throw their name into contention.But just a few hours after Biden’s announcement, Google documents were circulating asking delegates to pledge their support for Harris.Jonathan Padilla, a delegate from California, said he could stand for things to be a hair less mad.“I don’t want to be rushed into something,” Padilla said. “I do want to have deliberation. There’s a lot of frustration in the party, and I think having a process to talk to people from the campaign and to the candidate or people around her is necessary … to help us be unified in November.”Delegates are, by and large, local volunteers expected to spend thousands of dollars to fly to Chicago and attend the convention. It’s often viewed as a reward for activism and dedication, but it’s typically a far less consequential role than it might be next month.One delegate who isn’t yet old enough to drink expressed his mounting anxiety about how things are unfolding and how little has been predictable.“I’m a young, young person,” said the delegate, who requested anonymity because he feared being replaced by his state chair. “This is my first convention … And this is scary. It’s super anxiety-inducing, and crazy, and so much.”He said he was disappointed with the party for communicating poorly. “But at the same time, I don’t really feel like I have time to be disappointed. I feel like I just need to go knock on some doors.”In a “normal” election year, each state sends a number of delegates to the convention who have been pledged to a candidate. Those delegates are expected to vote for that candidate , on pain of being replaced by a state chair if their vote is wayward. With a majority going to one candidate, as has happened every election year since the 60s, that’s the end of it. A candidate is chosen.That bureaucratic, uncontroversial process has become an open question this year.In a call on Friday, before Biden dropped out, Elaine Kamarck, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a member of the party’s rules committee, likened the process of selecting a new presidential nominee to a mini-primary, with delegates as the voting audience. If Biden were to drop out, the process would be “scrunched into three weeks or something. It’d be incredibly tight.” The question at the convention would then become whether a consensus had formed on a new nominee.But that’s not exactly what’s happening right now. Instead, members of the California Democratic party have begun circulating a Google document asking delegates to pledge their support for Harris publicly and immediately. According to the list, shared with the Guardian by a delegate, 83 people had already signed on as of 9pm on Sunday. A second Google document is circulating to delegates with a form for pledging their support for Harris on a petition. Before the start of the convention, the Democratic National Committee is also planning to hold a virtual roll call , where a nominee would be chosen for legal purposes.View image in fullscreenOhio presents a problem. State law ostensibly requires parties to select their nominees by 9 August to appear on the ballot. Ohio lawmakers changed the law this year, but Democrats worry that the change won’t take effect in time.Padilla said he expected Harris to be the nominee, but some delegates are unhappy with the pressure for an early decision.“Vice-President Harris has the next 72 to 96 hours to mitigate any serious challenge,” he said. “And pending that, I think the party moves forward with the existing plan of the virtual roll call, which would mitigate risk at the convention, but it does probably leave a lot of delegates who would want a more transparent, deliberative process probably not happy.”Susan Herder, a Biden delegate from Minneapolis, said she thought Biden might be the best president of her lifetime, crediting him with turning the country around from Covid-19 and an economy in which the wealth gap had widened.After the debate and Biden’s exit, she’s ready to start campaigning for Harris. She said she intended to respect all voters and would listen to them to understand their points of view.“I am looking forward to the future,” she said in an email. “I hope everyone who is inclined will help us elect Kamala Harris. It’s a great way to defeat anxiety, fear and feelings of hopelessness. LET’S GET HER ELECTED!”While some delegates have only just come around to supporting someone other than Biden, others had been pushing for a change during the primaries, long before Biden’s disastrous debate.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I think we were feeling like our message has become even stronger in the past few hours,” said Asma Mohammed, leader of Minnesota’s “uncommitted” movement and a Democratic convention delegate. “In the past few hours, there are people who have reached out and said, ‘You know, you’re right. We needed a better candidate.’”Mohammed has been calling for pushback against the Biden administration’s support for the war in Gaza, demanding a plank in the party platform that calls for a ceasefire, an arms embargo and a president ready to support that position. She believes Harris is more sympathetic to her position than Biden was, despite having taking $5m in campaign donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), but wants time to put the question to her.“We are delegates from our communities, and we are being asked to represent,” Mohammed said. “We can’t do that if we’re only being given one option.”A degree of dissent against the virtual roll call had percolated up from delegates days ago. Delegates Are Democracy and Welcome Party, two organizations formed in recent days to help inform confused delegates about their options, have been hosting webinars, airing concerns from delegates about a convoluted process.Chris Dempsey, head of Delegates Are Democracy, said he had been speaking with dozens of delegates who say the process is opaque and that party leaders have been gatekeeping information. He stressed that Delegates for Democracy had not been advocating for Biden to withdraw, but was instead trying to guide delegates, who are often volunteers without deep legal training, about the rules.“We think that conventions are essential at putting forward strong nominees,” Dempsey said. “We can beat Donald Trump in November. But we know that we need credible sources of information to share with delegates. We want to be a place that delegates, the public, the media can come and get good information about how the process works.”Kamarck noted in a call on Friday that delegates were already free to vote for whoever they wanted, more or less. The convention rules contain a loophole, she said.“The loophole is ‘in all good conscience’. That was added after the very, very difficult and bitter 1980 convention.”At that convention, Senator Ted Kennedy challenged President Jimmy Carter in primaries and then a floor fight. At the time, delegates could be removed by state leaders if they changed their vote. The conscience clause emerged after that, to prevent delegates from acting like robots, Kamarck said.“On the Democratic side, there is no such thing as Joe Biden releasing his delegates,” Kamarck said. “And Joe Biden gets this. I don’t know why the rest of the press doesn’t get it. Joe Biden said in his Nato press conference: ‘The delegates can do whatever the hell they want to do.’ And that is basically true.” The delegate rules require their votes to “reflect the sentiments” of those who elected them.That phrase had never really been tested, Kamarck said. Until now.Biden’s withdrawal has set off a hunt for delegates, Kamarck said. Again, in a “normal” process, that hunt would start on the floor of the convention, with potential candidates soliciting signatures on a petition to get on a nomination ballot, with no more than 50 from any one state and 300 delegates to make the ballot.“I suspect that somebody from the [Democratic National Committee (DNC)] or the state parties would organize delegate meetings that would be open to the public – because all DNC meetings are open to the public – for the candidates to come and talk to the delegates, because they’d have to win over the delegates,” she said.The nomination for vice-president would be based on a separate vote, she said on Friday. “I imagine what would happen is that whoever emerged as the frontrunner – and maybe there’d be two or three of them – would all name their vice-presidential candidates. But then we’d have an open vote for vice-president. It could get quite confusing. But this assumes, all of this assumes, that there’s a contest. And I for one am very skeptical that there’ll be much of a contest.” More