By Trevor Hunnicutt, Nandita Bose and Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris swiftly consolidated Democratic support for her presidential bid on Monday, securing commitments from hundreds of convention delegates, announcing a massive fundraising haul and earning endorsements from top party figures after President Joe Biden abruptly left the race.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has remained influential since stepping down as the party’s House of Representatives leader in 2022, backed Harris on Monday, adding to a parade of endorsements from key Democrats.
Pelosi played a leading role in persuading Biden, 81, to step aside amid concerns over his acuity and ability to beat Republican Donald Trump or to serve another four years.
Pelosi, 84, saluted Biden in a statement, adding: “We must unify and charge forward to resoundingly defeat Donald Trump and enthusiastically elect Kamala Harris as the next President of the United States.”
The campaign aims to secure commitments from a majority of the nearly 4,000 Democratic delegates to next month’s Democratic Party convention by Wednesday evening, sources told Reuters, effectively wrapping up the nomination. Campaign officials and allies have made hundreds of calls urging delegates to nominate Harris for president in the Nov. 5 election.
Harris’ campaign said it had raised $81 million in the 24 hours after Biden’s exit, by far the most for a single day in the 2024 campaign for either party.
Virtually all of the prominent Democrats who had been seen as potential challengers to Harris have lined up behind her, including Governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gavin Newsom of California and Andy Beshear of Kentucky.
Biden’s departure was the latest shock to a White House race that included the near-assassination of former President Trump by a gunman during a campaign stop and the nomination of Trump’s fellow hardliner, U.S. Senator J.D. Vance, as his running mate.
HARRIS PRAISES BIDEN
Harris, 59, lauded Biden for his service to the country on Monday in her first public appearance since he abandoned his reelection bid on Sunday and endorsed her as his successor.
“Joe Biden’s legacy over the last three years is unmatched in modern history,” Harris said at a White House event to honor college athletes.
Harris did not specifically refer to her new status as the leading Democratic candidate for president. She said Biden, who tested positive for COVID-19 last week, was feeling better.
Democrats hope Harris can reenergize what had been a flagging presidential campaign, days after the Republican National Convention offered a stark display of Trump’s dominance over his party.
Harris traveled to Delaware on Monday afternoon to visit what had been the Biden campaign headquarters and now serves as her main campaign office.
NEW GENERATION
Harris, who is Black and Asian American, would fashion an entirely new dynamic with Trump, 78, offering a vivid generational and cultural contrast.
The Trump campaign has been preparing for her possible rise for weeks, sources told Reuters. It sent out a detailed critique of her record on immigration and other issues on Monday, accusing her of being more liberal than Biden.
It alleged that Harris favored abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and decriminalizing border crossings, backed the so-called Green New Deal, supported the administration’s electric vehicle mandates and encouraged “defund the police” efforts.
Some of those were positions Harris adopted as an unsuccessful presidential candidate in the 2020 election when she was running on a more liberal agenda than Biden but were not ones that the administration assumed, particularly with regard to border security and law enforcement issues.
Biden, the oldest person ever to occupy the Oval Office, said he would remain in the presidency until his term ends on Jan. 20, 2025.
Harris spent Sunday working the phones, dressed in a Howard University sweatshirt and eating pizza with anchovies as she spoke with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a potential vice presidential running mate, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and Congressional Black Caucus chair Representative Steven Horsford, according to sources.
Trump, whose false claims that his 2020 loss to Biden was the result of fraud inspired the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, on Monday questioned Democrats’ right to change candidates.
“They stole the race from Biden after he won it in the primaries,” Trump said on his Truth Social site.
OUTSPOKEN ON ABORTION
Biden won the party’s nomination in 2020, picked Harris to be his vice president, and went on to beat Trump. She is a former California attorney general and a former U.S. senator.
Harris is expected to stick largely to Biden’s foreign policy playbook on such issues as China, Iran and Ukraine, but could strike a tougher tone with Israel over the Gaza war if she wins the November election.
She has been outspoken on abortion rights, an issue that resonates with younger voters and more liberal Democrats.
Proponents argue she would mobilize those voters, consolidate Black support and bring sharp debating skills to prosecute the political case against the former president.
More than 44,000 Black women and allies, including Representatives Maxine Waters, Jasmine Crockett and Joyce Beatty, joined a three-hour call on Sunday evening in support of Harris bid, raising more than $1.5 million for her presidential campaign, organizers told Reuters.
But some Democrats were concerned about the country’s long history of racial and gender discrimination. The U.S. has not elected a woman president in its nearly 250-year-old history.
Most public polls conducted before Biden dropped out did not find that Harris performed better statistically against Trump than Biden had.
Biden has not been seen in public since testing positive for COVID on Wednesday. He was isolating at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and tentatively plans to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday if he has recovered.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Nandita Bose and Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, Steve Holland, Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu, Kat Stafford, Moira Warburton and Bo Erickson; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)