Kamala Harris says she is looking forward to accepting Democratic nomination as she secures support of enough delegates – live | US elections 2024


Key events

CNN commentator Van Jones says he thinks that if the Republicans focus on race in their attacks on Harris, they will lose the Black men they have worked so hard to attract to the party:

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White House chief of staff Jeff Zients on Monday urged aides to keep their heads down and remain focused on the work that remains, AP reports. He listed lowering housing and health care costs, implementing the administration’s key legislative achievements, and safeguarding democracy as among Biden’s top priorities for the final months of the administration.

The message is being echoed throughout the administration. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told senior State Department officials that Biden wants his team to remain laser focused on carrying out his foreign policy agenda. Blinken noted that there is still “one-eighth” of Biden’s term to go, according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

Biden, who is scheduled to meet with Israel’s Netanyahu later this week, said during his call to campaign staff that he was focused on getting a cease-fire agreement and expressed optimism that a deal was close.

“I’ll be working really closely with the Israelis and with the Palestinians to try to work out how we can get the Gaza war to end and Middle East peace and get all those hostages home,” Biden told campaign staff. “I think we’re on the verge of being able to do that.”

Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. Middle East peace negotiator, said that a cease-fire deal appears closer than it has been through the conflict.

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Though Harris has technically toed Biden’s line on Gaza, she is viewed as being more forceful when it comes to criticising Israel, and expressing empathy for Palestinians. When she delivered a speech in March in Selma, Alabama, to commemorate the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, her comments on Gaza were followed by sustained applause.

“People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane. And our common humanity compels us to act,” she said. “Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire.” She added, after stopping for the applause, “for six weeks”.

In the presidential primaries, more than 101,000 Michigan Democrats, about 13% of those who voted, cast ballots for “uncommitted”, after campaigning by anti-war organizers, winning two delegates to the Democratic national convention and awakening a modern anti-war movement that forced the president’s attention to Gaza.

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Lauren Gambino

Lauren Gambino

Harris will not preside over the chamber when when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday.

According to an aide, she will meet with Netanyahu at the White House at some point this week. On Wednesday, Harris is scheduled to be in Indianapolis to moderate a conversation with the Zeta Phi Beta sorority, Inc, one of the nation’s oldest Black sororities.

The @VP will meet with Netanyahu at the White House this week, per an aide. She is scheduled to be in Indianapolis on Wednesday to moderate a conversation with Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.’s Grand Boulé, when Netanyahu addresses Congress.

— Lauren Gambino (@laurenegambino) July 22, 2024

Harris’s absence during Netanyahu’s controversial address underlines the mounting tension between the Biden administration and the right-wing prime minister, as the death toll from Israel’s war in Gaza surpasses 39,000.

The vice president, who serves as president of the Senate, would typically preside over the chamber on such occasions, sitting on the House rostrum next to the Speaker as she has done previously for addresses by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Israeli president Isaac Herzog.

The aide emphasized that Harris’s absence should not be interpreted as a snub or change in her commitment to Israel’s security, but represented a scheduling conflict.

During her meeting with Netanyahu this week, the vice president is expected to discuss Israel’s security, as well as to again condemn the 7 October attack and the acts of sexual violence that have occured while stressing her concern for the humanitariain situtaion in Gaza.

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CNN reports that Beyoncé has given Harris her approval for the campaign to use the singer’s song Freedom as its official tune.

Citing a source close to Harris CNN says, “Beyoncé, who is known for maintaining strict clearance guidelines around her music, gave quick approval to Harris’ campaign when they sought permission to use “Freedom” on Monday — just hours before she walked out to the song, the source added.”

Harris walked into a campaign staff event to the song, which played as she ended her speech.

Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, endorsed Harris on Sunday, CNN reports.

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In case you missed this earlier: CNN senior political commentator Van Jones says that Harris has “gone from cringe to cool in 24 hours”.

“What’s happening on TikTok is extraordinary,” he says. “All of the things that were cringey about Kamala: her laugh, the coconut tree comment, being unburdened by – all those weird things that she said, she’s gone from cringe to cool in 24 hours as a whole generation has taken all that content and remixed it in all these incredible content videos.”

“She’s gone from cringe to cool in 24 hours” @VanJones68 tells me there’s been a rapid change in the past 24 hours among the TikTok generation and their embrace of VP Kamala Harris since she started her presidential bid. pic.twitter.com/l4IoYpqcnS

— Pamela Brown (@PamelaBrownCNN) July 22, 2024

He says that TikTok might be for Harris this year what Twitter was for Trump in 2016.

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ActBlue data shows donations record beaten for second day

According to a tracker of donations to ActBlue, the liberal political action committee, compiled by data journalist Ryan Murphy using ActBlue’s donations ticker, the 24 hours to midnight on 22 July have beat the record set the 24 hours before that:

While not all of these donations are to the Democrats, Harris announcing her intention to run is undoubtedly responsible for the bulk of the more than $130m that appears to have been raised in two days.

Donations were coming in at a rate of $3m an hour from 9am to 10pm on Monday:

Final Monday ActBlue tally: $67,221,729, with contributions coming in at a rate of at least $3 million per hour between 9AM and 10PM. pic.twitter.com/nUVwgkW8G5

— Rob Pyers (@rpyers) July 23, 2024

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The latest figures from the Associated Press show Harris with more than 2,500 delegates, well over the 1,976 needed to win a vote in the coming weeks.

Delegates could still, technically, change their minds but nobody else received any votes in the AP survey and only 54 delegates said they were undecided.

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Harris offered a sense of how she plans to attack Trump 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.

Kamala Harris attacks Republican nominee: ‘I know Donald Trump’s type’ – video

Other courts have found fraud was committed in his business, charitable foundation and private university.

Wisconsin 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.

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Harris to deliver first campaign event since announcing candidacy on Tuesday

Harris will campaign in the critical battleground state of Wisconsin on Tuesday for the first time as a presidential candidate.

The event in Milwaukee will be her first full-fledged campaign event since announcing her candidacy. Last week, Milwaukee was host to Trump, JD Vance and the RNC.

The Wisconsin trip offers another opportunity for the 59-year-old former California prosecutor to reset the Democrats’ campaign and make the case that she is best positioned to beat Trump. Harris is scheduled to deliver remarks at a political event in Milwaukee at 1.05pm CDT (6.05pm GMT).

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Meanwhile Biden plans to return to the White House on Tuesday afternoon, though has no public events scheduled.

He has aid that he will address the nation later this week.

President Joe Biden’s “symptoms have almost resolved completely” from Covid, according to his physician, as the president on Monday remained out of public view for the fifth straight day.

Biden called into the Wilmington, Delaware, headquarters of his former campaign during a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris, whose bid for the White House has been endorsed by Biden. The president sought to pep up the staff, urging them to give “every bit” of their “heart and soul” to Harris. Biden also vowed to be “out on the road” campaigning for his vice president.

“If I didn’t have Covid, I’d be standing there with you,” said Biden, whose voice sounded a gravelly, according to AP.

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Harris statement on becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee

Late on Monday night, less than 36 hours after Joe Biden announced that he was stepping aside, the Harris campaign has released a statement confirming that she has received the support needed to become the Democratic party’s nominee (though a reminder, has not yet been nominated) and that she looks forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.

Here is the full statement:

When I announced my campaign for President, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination. 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.

I am grateful to President Biden and everyone in the Democratic Party who has already put their faith in me, and I look forward to taking our case directly to the American people.

This election will present a clear choice between two different visions. Donald Trump wants to take our country back to a time before many of us had full freedoms and equal rights. I believe in a future that strengthens our democracy, protects reproductive freedom and ensures every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead.

Over the next few months, I will be traveling across the country talking to Americans about everything that is on the line. I fully intend to unite our party, unite our nation, and defeat Donald Trump in November.”

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Opening summary

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the 2024 US election with me, Helen Sullivan.

Kamala Harris confirmed late on Monday night that she had received the support needed to become the Democratic party’s nominee, and said that she looks forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.

Less than 36 hours after Biden announced that he was stepping aside, Harris earned enough delegates to become the likely Democratic party nominee, after California delegates voted unanimously to endorse her.

She also broke fundraising records, with $81m raised in 24 hours – $15m short of what Biden has raised over months of his campaign so far.

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, and delegates voted unanimously for Harris.

By Monday night, Harris had the support of at least 2,471 delegates, according to an AP tally of delegates, more than the 1,976 delegates she’ll need to win on a first ballot. No other candidate was named by a delegate contacted by the AP.

Delegates could still change their minds before 7 August, but nobody else received any votes in the AP survey, for example, and just 57 delegates said they were undecided.

Here are the other key recent developments:

  • In a speech to campaign staffers on Monday, Harris said that building up the middle class would be a defining goal of my presidency’. She will work to build a country “where every person has affordable healthcare, where every worker is paid fairly, and where every senior can retire with dignity,” she said. “All of this is to say, building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency,” she said.

  • She also spoke about abortion, attacked Trump’s economic policies, and appeared to choose a campaign song: Beyoncé’s ‘Freedom’. Speaking to campaign staff in Wilmington, Delaware, Harris turned to Donald Trump’s economic and social welfare policies, saying, “We are not going back”. Trump would put Social Security and Medicare “on the chopping block”, she said, turning healthcare into something that was only for the wealthy.

  • America’s freedom was fought for by its founders, framers, abolitionists, suffragettes, freedom riders, farm workers, she said. “And now I say, team, the baton is in our hands. We, who believe in the sacred freedom to vote. We who are committed to fight to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. We who believe in the freedom to live safe from gun violence. And that’s why we will work to pass universal background checks, red flag laws and an assault weapons ban.”

  • Harris’ campaign aims to wrap up her presidential nomination by Wednesday and secure a majority of the nearly 4,000 convention delegates needed to win, Reuters reports, citing four unnamed sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

  • A survey by the Associated Press has found that Harris has the support of more than half of the delegates she’ll need to take President Biden’s place at the top of the Democratic ticket. Over 1,000 pledged delegates told The Associated Press or announced that they plan to support Harris in a forthcoming vote to pick a new White House nominee.

  • Biden will return to the White House on Tuesday and is expected to address the nation later this week. President Joe Biden’s “symptoms have almost resolved completely” from Covid-19, according to his physician, as the president on Monday remained out of public view for the fifth straight day.

  • The leader of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee will preside over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Wednesday, Senate aides have told Reuters, as Harris will be traveling outside Washington.

  • Bernie Sanders has still refrained from endorsing Harris, though he said he thinks she will be the nominee, and stands a chance of winning the election with a big vote.

  • Democratic National Committee Chairman Jamie Harrison said on Monday the Democratic party will deliver a presidential nominee by 7 August and is committed to an “open and fair” nominating process.

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