(CN) — Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison announced Friday that Vice President Kamala Harris had received enough Democratic delegates' votes to be officially named the party's 2024 presidential nominee.
"I am honored to be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. I will officially accept the nomination next week," Harris said in a prepared statement Friday. "This campaign is about people coming together, fueled by love of country, to fight for the best of who we are."
Delegate voting began Thursday and will not officially close until Monday, but Harrison said the vice president had already secured more than enough votes by Friday afternoon.
"I am so proud to confirm that Vice President Harris has earned more than a majority of votes from all convention delegates and will be the nominee of Democratic Party following the close of voting on Monday," Harrison said.
The party quickly coalesced around Harris in the days after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection. Biden made that announcement July 21, endorsing Harris as his successor the same day. She has also received endorsements from the majority of elected national Democrats, including other prominent figures with possible presidential ambitions like Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
Their support, a month ahead of the Democratic National Convention, foreclosed any notion that Harris would face competition for her candidacy. The question now turns to who Harris will select as her running mate, with Pritzker and Whitmer still on the list of potentials. Other potential running mates include Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.
The sudden display of Democratic unity came after weeks of party infighting over Biden's reelection chances. Though concerns over Biden's age — he is now 81 — have simmered since the 2020 campaign, they boiled over following his abysmal performance at a June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump. Biden finally stepped aside after increasing pressure from the public and party insiders.
Prominent labor unions have also rallied behind Harris, including the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the Communications Workers of America, the Service Employees International Union, the United Farm Workers, the United Auto Workers, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Union of Healthcare Workers.
"Our job in this election is to defeat Donald Trump and elect Kamala Harris to build on her proven track record of delivering for the working class," United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain said in a prepared statement when his union endorsed Harris earlier this week.
Her support among Democrats is not absolute, however. Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has thus far withheld her endorsement, saying in a July 21 statement that she hoped for a "transparent democratic process at an open convention next month." Other members of the nominally progressive "Squad" like Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have fallen in behind Harris but Tlaib's statement put conditions on her support. She said her constituents seek an end to military funding for Israel, and a presidential candidate who prioritizes environmental, immigration and health care reform.
Harris' rightward shift on some of these issues, and her history of support for Israel, has attracted criticism from left-leaning commentators. Criticisms of Harris from the 2020 campaign have also reemerged. Some home in on her tenure as the district attorney of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011 and as California's attorney general from 2011 to 2017. While in San Francisco her office targeted parents of chronically truant schoolchildren for prosecution, though no parents ever served jail time. Her office also oversaw more than 1,900 convictions for cannabis offenses and she came out against the failed 2010 state ballot initiative to legalize recreational use.
"I mean, Harris won't even endorse a job guarantee, which is an extremely conservative policy. Nor single-payer health care, which is just 'bringing the U.S. in line with other wealthy countries,'" political columnist and Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson said Friday.
Harris' war chest continues to swell regardless. Her campaign said it raised about $100 million, including 1.1 million individual donations, within 36 hours of Biden dropping out. That figure had reportedly tripled to over $300 million by the end of July. Politico further reported last week that one of the leading Democratic super PACs, Future Forward, had secured $150 million more in commitments.
Women Vote, another super PAC backing Harris, launched the vice president's first campaign ad July 22 ahead of her nomination. The ad portrays Harris as a champion of reproductive rights, which has become a focus of the race. Harris' ad contrasts her with Donald Trump's and other Republicans' hostility to abortion, proclaiming the vice president "won't back down" on abortion access.
Harris further highlighted the differences between herself and Donald Trump on Wednesday following Trump's appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention. Trump's conversation with a panel of Black women journalist turned hostile on several occasions, and the former president also implied that Harris had co-opted her Black heritage for political points.
"Is she Indian or is she Black? I respect either one but she obviously doesn't. Because she was Indian all the way and all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person,” Trump said on stage.
The Harris campaign retorted: "Today’s tirade is simply a taste of the chaos and division that has been a hallmark of Trump’s MAGA rallies this entire campaign."
Harris' candidacy has also caused a stir in Gen Z online culture. Pop singer Charli XCX declared "kamala IS brat" on social media on July 21, referencing her recently-released album "brat." The Harris campaign adopted the lime-green "brat" album color on its social media pages soon after, and videos of Harris dancing or speaking set to the album's music became so prevalent online that Jake Tapper and other commentators north of 40 tried to puzzle out the phenomenon on CNN.
Other users indulged in an ironic movement of "coconutposting," sharing memes that involved some combination of coconuts, coconut trees and the vice president. The posts reference an aside Harris made during a May 2023 address at the White House, where she compared acknowledging one's place in the context of history to falling out of a coconut tree.
"My mother used to — she would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, 'I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?'" the vice president said at the time, laughing. "You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you."
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