TThe phone line was a little murky, and the voice on the other end was hoarse from days of coronavirus isolation, but the poignancy of the message, and the moment itself, couldn’t be clearer. “I see you. I love you,” the person on the other end said.
Joe Biden’s heartfelt call to Vice President Kamala Harris at the Democratic campaign headquarters in Delaware on Monday marked a generational shift in American politics, a symbolic passing of the baton from parent to child.
It was also a defining moment in the 2024 presidential race: The 81-year-old Harris, a former prosecutor, state attorney general, California senator and Biden aide for three and a half years, emerged as the party’s first recommended candidate less than 24 hours after Biden shocked the nation with his shock announcement that he would not run for a second term.
It’s been a hectic week of campaigning by any standards, during an unusual month in American history already highlighted by the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate in the Nov. 5 election.
By Wednesday, Harris had spoken as the presumptive Democratic nominee at a historically black sorority house in Indianapolis and secured enough delegate support to clinch the nomination at the party’s national convention in Chicago next month.
That was the same day that Biden delivered an emotional, nationally broadcast address from the White House explaining his decision to step down “to protect our democracy.”
“I respect the office, but more than that, I love my country,” he said, urging Americans to support Harris.
A string of leading Democrats have also voiced their support for her, culminating in an extraordinary endorsement from Barack Obama on Friday, along with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, all 23 governors of the party and elected officials ranging from the party’s most junior member to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“We’re not messing around,” Harris told supporters at a sorority rally in Indiana on Wednesday.
“So much is at stake right now, and our country is counting on you to continue to invigorate, organize, mobilize, register people to vote, get people to the polls, and fight for the future that our country and its people deserve.
“When we organize, mountains move. When we mobilize, countries change. And when we vote, history is made.”
It was an emotional speech from a politician who just three days earlier had still been on the sidelines, despite weeks of speculation about Biden’s future following his disastrous debate defeat with Trump in June.
But things moved quickly once the president’s decision to step down was announced on Sunday afternoon: the Biden campaign organisation and around $100m (£77.6m) of campaign funds became the property of a new organisation called Harris for President (Republicans have vowed to challenge the transfer of funds in court).
And staff scrambled to draw up a new travel schedule for the vice president that will see her crisscross the country, including a speech on Monday in Wilmington, Delaware, in which she acknowledged the “roller coaster” of events over the past 24 hours.
She held a rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Tuesday, promoting her campaign message that “we will not return to the chaos of the Trump era.”
“We are faced with a choice between two different visions for our nation: one that focuses on the future, and one that focuses on the past,” she told a group of black women in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Wednesday.
“Our vision is a place where everyone has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead,” she told teachers in Houston, Texas, on Thursday.
Also on Thursday, Harris met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time as a presidential candidate, rather than at a joint summit as vice president. The White House issued a statement in Harris’ name, rather than Biden’s, condemning the violence and burning of an American flag at an anti-Netanyahu protest in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
In powerful public remarks after the meeting, she also criticized Biden more than ever before for the suffering of civilians in Gaza. “I will not be silent,” she said.
“Israel has the right to defend itself…” [but] We cannot turn a blind eye to these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering.”
Meanwhile, behind the scenes activity was moving just as swiftly as Harris’ public emergence.
The fundraising surge brought in $81 million, the most ever in a 24-hour period in the history of a presidential campaign, providing a windfall for the newly named Harris Victory Fund, which had raised more than $130 million by Thursday night, mostly from small or first-time donors.
Capturing the enthusiasm of younger voters that polls have found conspicuously lacking for Biden and the 78-year-old Trump, Ms. Harris’ team also released her first campaign video on social media. The unofficial theme song of Ms. Harris’ presidential campaign, Beyonce’s 2016 hit “Freedom,” provided the background music for a message countering Mr. Trump’s vision of “chaos, fear and hate” for the country.
Harris enjoys huge support among Gen Z, as evidenced by her endorsement by numerous youth groups, including March for Our Lives, a student activist group formed in response to the 2018 Parkland high school shooting.
Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than British singer Charlie XCX’s X/Twitter declaration that “Kamala is a brat.” Viewed by more than 53 million people, the simple message summarizing a pop culture lifestyle delighted younger generations and confounded older ones in equal measure. “Just listen to a Charlie XCX album and you’ll get it,” Maxwell Frost, Florida’s first Gen Z congressman, told CNN.
“Whether it’s the coconut tree or the bad boy story or whatever it is, that message is reaching tens of millions of young people across the country and around the world, and that’s really inspiring.”
Confused by Biden’s abrupt withdrawal and alarmed by polls showing Harris gaining popularity and even outpacing Trump, Biden’s campaign scrambled to find an opening to attack its new opponent.
At a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump experimented with insults, calling Harris a “far-left lunatic” and “the most incompetent, far-left vice president in American history.” Republican supporters were also keen to launch racist attacks, calling Harris, who is of Black and Asian descent, a “DEI.” [diversity, equity and inclusion] It determines whether someone is “fit” or “unfit” for the presidency.
Experts have warned that we can expect an all-out attack of misogyny and racism against Harris as the election approaches.
But this week, Harris’ fledgling campaign has taken its first steps while sharpening its own knives, casting its campaign as “prosecutors vs. felons,” sharply criticizing the 34 fraud charges Trump was convicted of and on Thursday issuing a scathing letter mocking the former president’s rambling anti-Harris tirade on the right-wing news channel, as well as a “Statement on a 78-Year-Old Convict’s Appearance on Fox News.”It’s not pulling any punches.
With Harris’ fulfilling first week of her presidential bid poised to go down in history, the question is whether she can maintain that initial enthusiasm and momentum through the grueling 101 days remaining until the election.
Harris and her team are confident they can do so: Contrary to what the British liberal politician Joseph Chamberlain said more than a century ago: “In politics there is no point in thinking beyond the next two weeks,” they are looking not just to the November election but to the eight years after.
