Vice President Kamala Harris is officially the only serious contender for the Democratic nomination for the presidency.
The Democratic National Committee set a deadline for other candidates to declare their intent to run by July 27 at 6 PM ET. No credible candidates except Harris did so.
President Joe Biden’s quick endorsement of Harris after he withdrew from the race last week galvanized support behind Harris, even from potential challengers. Within 24 hours of the endorsement, Harris had raked in tens of millions in donations from hundreds of thousands of grassroots donors. She gained hundreds of endorsements from fellow Democrats, and by Tuesday, she had pledges from 2,887 delegates, nearly a thousand more than the needed 1,975 or so to secure the nomination.
She’s now all but certain to be the nominee when the DNC holds its virtual roll call vote on Aug. 7. Harris has also set a deadline of Aug. 7 to name her running mate.
Only a handful of people even flirted with putting their name in contention before Biden stepped down. There was West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who spent a lot of time in front of cameras saying Biden should quit the race and calling for an open primary. When the rubber hit the road, however, he declined to make the run. He’s a former Democrat, but that didn’t stop him from preening for the cameras.
Then there’s Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, who for some reason thinks people should know who he is and want him to be their leader. He ran for president this year, ending his campaign in March. Even after the organic, massive groundswell of support behind Harris, Phillips was still demanding a mini-primary for the nomination.
Then there’s Marianne Williamson, the gadfly also-ran from 2020 who has jumped in and out of the 2024 race. After Biden’s announcement that she was stepping down, she posted a message on her campaign that the process for replacing him “must be opened to a genuinely democratic process at an open convention” and that she would seek the nomination, despite her most recent withdrawal from the race in June.
However, in order to qualify, she needs to collect a minimum of 300 delegate signatures, with no more than 50 from one state. Given her performance, and lack of delegates, during the primaries earlier this year, that is extremely unlikely to happen.
Next stop: the DNC’s virtual roll call on Aug. 7, and then off to Chicago for what is sure to be a lit convention, Aug. 19-22.
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