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Vice President Kamala Harris thanked President Joe Biden for his endorsement of her amid his announcement that he would not run for re-election and confirmed that she would run for the Democratic nomination for president.
Harris released the statement as many prominent leaders ranging from moderates to progressives have coalesced around Harris after Biden’s endorsement of her. She thanked Biden for her selecting him as her running mate, citing the fact she knew Biden’s late son, former Delaware attorney general Beau Biden.
“With this selfless and patriotic act, President Biden is doing what he has done throughout his life of service: putting the American people and our country above everything else,” she said.
The vice president made clear in her statement that she would run for the Democratic nomination for president.
“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” she said. “Over the past year, I have traveled across the country, talking with Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election.”
But despite the fact multiple factions within the Democratic Party endorsing her run, Harris said she would not take her victory as a guarantee.
“I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party — and unite our nation — to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda,” she said in a statement.
The outgoing president swiftly endorsed his vice president upon his announcement that he would end his campaign.
“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President,” he said in a statement on X. “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 of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”
Biden’s decision to withdraw comes after consistently losing to Trump in polls ever since he announced his re-election for president and his disastrous debate in Atlanta last month against Trump. Almost as soon as Biden exited the stage, some Democrats told The Independent that Biden needed to be replaced by his vice president.
At the same time, Republicans almost immediately began attacking her as soon as the announcement came.
“Kamala Harris is just as much of joke as Biden is,” Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, who run Trump’s campaign said in a statement. “Harris will be even WORSE for the people of our Nation than Joe Biden. Harris has been the Enabler in Chief for Crooked Joe this entire time. They own each other’s records, and there is no distance between the two. Harris must defend the failed Biden Administration AND her liberal, weak-on-crime record in CA.”
During the Republican National Convention, Republicans began to shape their narrative around Harris, noting how she owned some of the more unpopular parts of the Biden administration such as immigration and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan that left 13 US servicemembers dead.
But numerous Democrars from multiple factions in the party openly got behind Harris and followed the president’s lead.
“In this moment, it is clear that Vice President Kamala Harris is the best person to lead our party and our nation forward, and I am so proud to endorse her as our 47th President of the United States,” Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, a member of the Squad, said in a statement.
Similarly, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a longtime friend of Harris’s since she was attorney general of California, said she should be the next president. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a potential challenger to Harris, also announced his support. Both men have also been floated as potential running mates for Harris.
Harris’s announcement comes less than a month before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago as Democrats hope to stave off contentious fight for the Democratic nomination.
