Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns In Atlanta, July 30, 2024. Arvin Temkar/TNS via ZUMA Press via Shutterstock
Vice President Kamala Harris has enough Democratic Party delegate votes in a virtual roll call to earn the party's nomination when the roll call ends Monday, Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison announced Friday, reports AP.
"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 the Democratic Party following the close of voting on Monday," Harrison said during a video call on Friday.
"You returned your nomination petitions at lightning speed. You made your voices heard. And what you said was clear: We are not going back. We have to send Kamala Harris to the White House," Harrison said during a video call on Friday. "You denominated your dedication and your commitment to this process."
Convention delegates have been virtually voting by email or phone since 9 a.m. ET on Thursday in a virtual roll call set up by the Democratic National Committee. They still have until 6 p.m. ET on Monday to cast their votes.
Harris was already deemed the presumptive nominee by the Democratic National Committee on Tuesday after she emerged from a process, laid out by the party's Rules Committee, as the only qualified candidate.
The nomination is a historic one -- if she wins the general election in November against former President Donald Trump, she would be the first woman to serve as president. Harris is already the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to be vice president.
Friday's announcement marks a major milestone of Harris' rapid ascension to the top of the ticket, which comes just 12 days after President Joe Biden ended his campaign for reelection on July 21 -- a remarkable show of unity for a party that just weeks ago stood deeply divided over what to do about the president's candidacy.
With Biden endorsing Harris to succeed him shortly after he announced that he would step aside, support from Democratic donors and elected officials quickly coalesced around the vice president. In the end, Harris was the only competitive candidate that launched a campaign to succeed Biden and the only candidate that received enough delegate signatures to progress to the virtual roll call.
Harris is the first candidate to become the nominee for either major party without winning a single party primary since Hubert Humphrey in 1968. (That year's convention precipitated reforms that led to the modern primary process.)
The DNC initially decided in May to hold a virtual roll call because of uncertainty over deadlines to get on the ballot in Ohio. The state legislature eventually rectified the issue, but the DNC has argued that Republican lawmakers in Ohio are acting in bad faith and that the Democratic candidate needs to be nominated earlier than the convention to avoid legal issues. Ohio leaders have denied this allegation.
