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Vice President Kamala Harris said she plans to seek the Democratic nomination after President Joe Biden stepped aside and endorsed her, setting up a push that could make her the first Black woman and first Asian American to lead the ticket of a major political party.
“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” she said in a statement.
Biden’s historic endorsement — and Harris’s pledge to unite the party behind her —came Sunday after he announced that he is dropping his reelection bid following weeks of disarray within the Democratic Party. The president’s disastrous debate called into question his ability to win a second term and govern for another four years.
“My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee,” Biden said.
Still, despite the president’s backing, it remains unclear if Harris will become the nominee, or what process the Democratic Party would take to select an alternative. It will now be up to the delegates to the party’s national convention to choose their candidate. While Harris allies have sought to secure her path to the nomination, some Democrats have stopped short of backing her or explicitly called for an open nomination process.
Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison said in a statement that in the coming days the party will “undertake a transparent and orderly process to move forward as a united Democratic Party with a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
Logistically, Harris is the natural heir to the ticket as Biden’s running mate.
The Biden-Harris campaign on Sunday formally amended filings with the Federal Election Commission to rename its principal committee “Harris for President,” saying that the committee name is “different than previously reported.”
The committee also filed a letter with the commission stating that “Vice President Harris is now a candidate for United States President in the 2024 election and will henceforth be conducting campaign activities only in pursuit of that office.”
Control of the campaign war chest, however – totaling $95.9 million at the end of June – depends on whether Harris remains on Democrats’ 2024 ticket.
Recent polling has also shown her performing better against former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, than Biden and other potential Democratic contenders.
Should there be efforts to pass over Harris in favor of Democrats seen as likely to run in 2028, there may be backlash from the vice president’s supporters and prominent Black Democrats. But Harris has also experienced something of a renaissance within her party, as Democrats showered her with praise in the days following the debate.
Throughout her vice presidency, Harris has struggled to define herself while juggling an issue portfolio that has included difficult topics such as voting rights and stemming the tide of migrants coming from Central America. On the former, an effort to bolster the Voting Rights Act failed in Congress. On migration, Harris was criticized on the right for not spending enough time on the border and on the left for telling migrants in a speech, “Do not come.”
As recently as last year, some Democrats were worried that negative views of Harris could hurt the ticket, prompting prominent Democrats to urge the party to stop undermining her.
But in the weeks since Biden’s June debate performance, Harris has settled into a groove, becoming a key surrogate for Biden’s reelection campaign on reproductive health as the campaign put it, the threat Trump poses to democracy.
Harris allies have argued that much of the criticism is a result of racism and sexism against the country’s first woman of color in such a position. Now, they say, the country is seeing in Harris what her allies have seen for years.
“Oftentimes Black women are not seen until they’re needed,” said LaTosha Brown, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter, a progressive group that works to boost Black voter turnout. “We’ve seen her constantly berated, marginalized, questioned. I think that the shift is because there’s a need.”
Erin Schaff/The New York Times/Redux
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, speaks during a campaign event in Washington, DC, in October 2024.
From Kamala Harris/Facebook
A young Harris is seen with her mother, Shyamala, in this photo that was posted on Harris' Facebook page in March 2017. "My mother was born in India and came to the United States to study at UC Berkeley, where she eventually became an endocrinologist and breast-cancer researcher,"
Harris wrote. "She, and so many other strong women in my life, showed me the importance of community involvement and public service."
Courtesy Kamala Harris
Harris and her younger sister, Maya, pose for a Christmas photo in 1968.
From Kamala Harris/Facebook
Harris rides a carousel in this old photo
she posted to social media in 2015. Her name, Kamala, comes from the Sanskrit word for the lotus flower. Harris is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants and grew up attending both a Baptist church and a Hindu temple.
From Kamala Harris/Twitter
Harris tweeted this photo of her as a child after referencing it during a Democratic debate in June 2019. During the debate,
she confronted Joe Biden over his opposition many years ago to the federal government mandating busing to integrate schools. "There was a little girl in California who was bussed to school,"
she tweeted. "That little girl was me."
From Kamala Harris/Facebook
Harris got her bachelor's degree from Howard University in Washington, DC.
From Kamala Harris/Facebook
Harris graduates from law school in 1989. "My first grade teacher, Mrs. Wilson (left), came to cheer me on," Harris said. "My mom was pretty proud, too."
Paul Sakuma/AP
Harris is joined by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, left, and the Rev. Cecil Williams, center, for a San Francisco march celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. in January 2004. Harris was the city's district attorney from 2004 to 2011.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Harris speaks to supporters before a "No on K" news conference in October 2008. The San Francisco ballot measure Proposition K sought to stop enforcing laws against prostitution. It was voted down on election day.
Rich Pedroncelli/AP
Harris looks over seized guns following a news conference in Sacramento, California, in June 2011. Harris became California's attorney general in January 2011 and held that office until 2017. She was the first African American, the first woman and the first Asian American to become California's attorney general.
Sandy Huffaker/Corbis/Getty Images
Harris attends the Democratic Party's state convention in February 2012.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Harris watches California Gov. Jerry Brown sign copies of the California Homeowner Bill of Rights in July 2012.
Harry E. Walker/MCT/Getty Images
Harris speaks on the second night of the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
Rich Pedroncelli/AP
In May 2013, Harris and California Highway Patrol Commissioner Joe Farrow place a wreath honoring Highway Patrol officers who were killed in the line of duty.
Jeff Chiu/AP
Harris officiates the wedding of Kris Perry, left, and Sandy Stier in June 2013. Perry and Stier were married after a federal appeals court cleared the way for California to immediately resume issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
From Kamala Harris/Twitter
Harris is flanked by her husband, Douglas Emhoff, and her sister, Maya. Next to Maya Harris is Maya's daughter, Meena, and Maya's husband, Tony West.
Sandy Huffaker/Corbis/Getty Images
Harris receives a gift from supporters in January 2015 after she announced plans to run for the US Senate.
Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
Harris speaks during a news conference in February 2015.
Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images
Harris, as a new member of the Senate, participates in a re-enacted swearing-in with Vice President Joe Biden in January 2017. She is the first Indian American and the second African American woman to serve as a US senator.
Tom Williams/Getty Images
Harris talks with former US Sen. Bob Dole on Capitol Hill in January 2017.
Noam Galai/WireImage/Getty Images
Harris attends the Women's March on Washington in January 2017.
Zach Gibson/Getty Images
Harris speaks to Fatima and Yuleni Avelica, whose father was deported, before a news conference on Capitol Hill in March 2017.
Julia Rendleman/Getty Images
Harris greets a crowd at an event in Richmond, Virginia, in October 2017.
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images
In November 2017, Harris was among the lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee grilling Silicon Valley giants over the role that their platforms inadvertently played in Russia's meddling in US politics.
From Kamala Harris/Facebook
Harris and her husband attend a Golden State Warriors basketball game in May 2018.
Patrick T. Fallon/Getty Images
Harris attends a rally with, from left, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom, and Newsom's wife, Jennifer, in May 2018. Newsom won the election in November.
Melina Mara/Getty Images
Harris speaks with US Sen. Cory Booker during the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in September 2018.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Harris presses Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.
Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/AP
Harris arrives with staff for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in September 2018.
Faye Sadou/MediaPunch/AP
Harris reads from her children's book "Superheroes Are Everywhere" during a book signing in Los Angeles in January 2019. She also released a memoir, "The Truths We Hold: An American Journey."
Barbara Davidson/Getty Images
A person holds a Harris poster during the Women's March in Los Angeles in January 2019.
Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters
Harris holds her first presidential campaign rally in January 2019. She had announced her presidential bid a week earlier on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Her campaign signs carried the theme "Kamala Harris for the people" — the words that she spoke each time she rose in the courtroom as a prosecutor.
Edward M. Pioroda/CNN
Harris speaks during her CNN town-hall event, which was moderated by Jake Tapper in Iowa in January 2019.
Bebeto Matthews/Pool/Getty Images
Media members photograph Harris and the Rev. Al Sharpton as they have lunch at Sylvia's Restaurant in New York in February 2019.
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Harris confronts former Vice President Joe Biden, left, during the first Democratic debates in June 2019. Harris
went after Biden over his early career opposition to federally mandated busing.
Maddie McGarvey/The New York Times/Redux
Harris rides her campaign bus in Iowa in August 2019.
Adam Schultz/Biden for President
Harris and Biden greet each other at a Detroit high school as they attend a "Get Out the Vote" event in March 2020. Harris had dropped out of the presidential race a few months earlier, telling her supporters that the campaign didn't have the financial resources to continue.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Harris joins fellow Democrats from the House and Senate as they kneel in silence to honor George Floyd at the US Capitol in June 2020.
Adam Schultz/Biden for President
Biden calls Harris from his Delaware home to inform her that she was his choice for vice president.
Adam Schultz/Biden for President
Harris and Biden sign paperwork to officially get on the ballot in all 50 states.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Harris delivers a speech as she formally accepts the nomination at the
Democratic National Convention. "Let's fight with conviction," Harris said in her speech. "Let's fight with hope. Let's fight with confidence in ourselves and a commitment to each other. To the America we know is possible. The America we love."
Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Biden and Harris appear before supporters at the end of the Democratic National Convention.
Morry Gash/Pool/Getty Images
From Doug Emhoff/Twitter
Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, tweeted this photo of him and Harris that was taken in November 2020, just after she and Biden were projected to win the election. "So proud of you," Emhoff wrote.
Carolyn Kaster/AP
Harris arrives on stage to give a victory speech in Wilmington, Delaware.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times/Redux
Biden and Harris greet each other on the stage where they delivered their victory speeches.
Maddie McGarvey for CNN
Harris walks with her family to the White House on the final stretch of an abbreviated inaugural parade.
Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
Leah Millis/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Harris is given a tour near the demarcation line as she
visited the Demilitarized Zone dividing North and South Korea in September 2022. It was the last stop on her four-day trip to Asia, and it came a day after North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the waters off its east coast.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
addresses Congress at the US Capitol in December 2022 as Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hold up a Ukrainian national flag signed by troops from the besieged area of Bakhmut.
Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Biden and Harris pose with the Golden State Warriors as the NBA champions
visited the White House in January 2023. Harris said she had been a Warriors fan her "entire life."
Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Biden and Harris
meet with congressional leaders in the White House Oval Office in May 2023 to talk about a deal to raise the nation's borrowing limit and avoid a historic default. Joining Biden and Harris, from left, are Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images
US Sen. Laphonza Butler is sworn in by Harris at the US Capitol in October 2023. Harris and Butler are
two of only three Black women to have served as a US senator.
Matt Kelley/AP
Harris embraces Biden after a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, in March 2024.
The rare joint appearance highlighted the emphasis that the duo planned to place on health care for the upcoming election.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times/Pool/AP
Kevin Mohatt/Reuters
Harris speaks just outside of Milwaukee in
her first campaign rally, two days after Biden dropped out of the presidential race. She told supporters that she would spend the coming weeks "continuing to unite our party" ahead of August's Democratic National Convention and this fall's showdown with Donald Trump.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
Todd Heisler/The New York Times/Redux
Amara Ajagu watches Harris formally accept her party's presidential nomination at the
Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 2024.
Ajagu is one of Harris' young grandnieces. Harris is the first Black woman and first Asian American to lead a major-party ticket. If elected, she would be the first woman and Indian American president.
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Harris shakes hands with former President Donald Trump at the start of
their presidential debate in September 2024. Harris walked over to Trump and extended her hand. He accepted the handshake. It was the first time the two had met.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Harris hugs a child after speaking at a campaign event in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, in October 2024.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Harris is surprised by campaign staff with birthday decorations before Air Force Two departed from Atlanta on October 20. Harris had just turned 60.
Rebecca Wright/CNN
Harris participates in a
CNN town hall in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in October 2024. She faced questions from undecided and persuadable voters and made a final pitch to them.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times/Redux
Harris and former President Barack Obama walk and talk backstage before speaking at a campaign rally in Clarkston, Georgia, in October 2024.
Jim Bourg/Redux
Harris speaks from the Ellipse in Washington, DC, in October 2024. The Harris-Walz campaign billed the speech as her
"closing argument" one week before the election.
Chary Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images
Harris makes
a surprise appearance on "Saturday Night Live" in November 2024. “You got this,” Harris told her “SNL” alter ego, played by Maya Rudolph.
Austin Steele/CNN
Harris delivers
her concession speech after losing the election to Trump. “The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for," she told supporters at Howard University. "But hear me when I say: The light of America’s promise will always burn bright."
A growing number of Democratic officials and donors already have rallied behind Harris, including the Congressional Black Caucus PAC, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Democratic Senate candidates including Andy Kim of New Jersey, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.
Even as Democrats waited for Biden to make his decision, Harris supporters were working behind the scenes for the last week to secure support from delegates -– not to push Biden out, but to be prepared in case he left the race.
“We have been whipping delegates for the last week,” a senior Democratic strategist who worked on Harris’ 2020 campaign told CNN.
Her network of backers includes a number of key Black female Democratic allies who have been quietly organizing for weeks to ensure that she would be well positioned to lead the ticket if Biden stepped aside. Those women will meet in a Zoom call Sunday evening.
“The bottom line is, we are ready to go,” said Brown of Black Voters Matter. “We are grateful for President Biden’s service and that’s why we fought for him until the end. We are ecstatic that he has put his endorsement behind Vice President Kamala Harris. We expect the full Democratic apparatus to do the same and if they don’t, they will lose this election.”
Harris allies are describing this moment as “uncharted territory” but are confident the party will be able to navigate the days ahead because Biden has endorsed her.
For donors, Biden’s decision to exit the race and endorse Harris represents a seismic change for the Democratic party that many are embracing publicly.
Dmitri Mehlhorn, a Democratic political strategist advising several big-money backers, released a statement Sunday following Biden’s withdrawal supporting Harris.
“Kamala Harris is the American dream personified, daughter of immigrants who met at Cal,” Mehlhorn said. “She is also toughness personified, rising from my home town of Oakland California to become the top prosecutor of the state. With Scranton Joe stepping back, I cannot wait to help elect President Harris.”
Other donors were less enthusiastic about the Harris pick. Top Biden donor John Morgan called the president’s endorsement of Harris a “f— you” to people who “pushed him out.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” he wrote on X.
Harris, the daughter of Berkeley political activists and immigrants from India and Jamaica, grew up in Oakland and spent much of her political career in California’s Bay Area. After earning her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of Law, she became a deputy district attorney for Alameda County. She later served in the San Francisco district attorney and city attorney offices.
In 2003, she was elected district attorney for San Francisco. Seven years later, she was elected California’s attorney general – the first woman, first Black person and first Asian American to hold the position.
Harris’s record in law enforcement would later become both a boon and a burden to her political campaigns for Senate and the White House. Among her more controversial policies was a truancy program she advocated, which allowed parents to be charged with misdemeanors if their children missed too many school days. Harris later said she regretted the “unintended consequences” of the program.
In 2016, Harris won her bid to succeed outgoing California Sen. Barbara Boxer, becoming the second Black woman to ever serve in the US Senate.
As a senator, Harris was known for her prosecutorial questioning style during hearings with Trump administration officials and nominees, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Three years later, in January 2019, she entered the Democratic presidential primary. From the start, Harris acknowledged the historic nature of her campaign – she launched her bid on the federal holiday marking Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and held a news conference at Howard University, the historically Black college she graduated from in 1986.
Harris was one of more than a dozen Democrats, including Biden, who sought the 2020 party nomination. One of Biden’s worst debate moments of that cycle came when Harris blasted him over his opposition in the 1970s to court-ordered busing of students to desegregate schools. The dig from Harris, who was close friends with Biden’s son Beau before his death in 2015, came as a surprise to Biden and angered some his allies.
After she dropped out, Harris became a prominent surrogate for Biden before being named his vice presidential pick in August 2020.
“I’ve decided that Kamala Harris is the best person to help me take this fight to Trump and Mike Pence and then to lead this nation starting in January 2021,” Biden told supporters in an email.
This story and headline have been updated with additional reporting.
CNN’s Kayla Tausche, Eva McKend, Jeff Zeleny, Ethan Cohen and David Wright contributed to this report.