Enough Democratic delegates now support US Vice-President Kamala Harris for her to be positioned for official naming as the party's presidential nominee at the August convention. With the Trump campaign ready to blame her for the "border invasion", Republican Vice President nominee J.D. Vance used the ticket change of the Democrats to taut it as a democratic threat in an inaugural speech.
Harris has reached the 1,976 delegates needed to win the nomination and shows broad support from top party leaders all the way down to the rank-and-file member. At this point, she is unopposed.
The party hopes to complete the process with online voting before the Aug. 19 convention begins.
"When I launched my campaign for President, I said I was going to earn this nomination," Harris said Monday night. "Tonight, I am proud to have reached the threshold of delegates necessary to secure the nomination and know that as a daughter of California, my home state's delegation put our campaign over the top. I look forward to formally accepting soon."
She continued, "In the next months, I will be traveling all across this country talking to Americans about everything that is at stake. I fully intend to unite our party, unite our nation, and defeat Donald Trump in November.".
While the presidential election date is set on November 4, early voting as early as September takes place right after the Democratic convention, slated to end in Chicago, Illinois, on August 22. Normally, most Democrats vote early either in person or through the mail and by drop boxes. Republicans vote on election day, although this is changing.
The rise of Harris to the top of the ticket reenergized the Democratic party, which had hit its all-time low following Biden's poor showing in the first debate against Trump. Donations have poured into the campaign, including an unprecedented $81 million that Harris brought in during the first 24 hours of her nomination.
The Trump campaign had been counting on a weakened Biden—an old, slow foe. Now, it watches Harris' rise with interest. Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, leaders of the Trump campaign, said in an internal memo to campaign staff, "Just as Donald Trump fired Joe Biden, he will demonstrate to the world he can fire Dangerously liberal Kamala as well."
They intend to connect her to the failures of the Biden administration on issues such as undocumented migration across the southern border.
"Border Czar Kamala Harris owns the border invasion, which has brought nearly 100 terrorists roaming the United States, hundreds of thousands of American dead due to Fentanyl, a child trafficking epidemic resulting in killings and kidnappings, a spread of a new type of crime, a crime directly linked to Harris' own beliefs, and backed by her actions, released migrants who prey and kill innocent Americans," LaCivita and Wiles said in the memo.
It was the solo debut of Vice President nominee Vance at an election rally in Ohio. "Now history will remember Joe Biden not just as a quitter, which he is, but one of the worst Presidents of the United States of America," he said, before going on, "But my friends, Kamala Harris is a million times worse and everybody knows it.".
He also accused Harris of concealing Biden's health issues, which were initially rumored by Trump. Vance blasted the Democratic party for "swapping" its nominee during the campaign. "That is not how it works. That is a threat to democracy, not the Republican Party, which is fighting for democracy every single day," he said in remarks from his high school auditorium in Middletown, Ohio.
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