DNC rules committee to meet Wednesday - reports
CNN and the Wall Street Journal report that the DNC rules committee’s co-chairs have announced the committee will meet on Wednesday afternoon.
The committee determines the rules for the party’s nomination.
“It is now the Committee’s responsibility to implement a framework to select a new nominee, which will be open, transparent, fair, and orderly,” said co-chairs Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and longtime Democratic operative Leah Daughtry.
“The process presented for consideration will be comprehensive, it will be fair, and it will be expeditious.”
Where Harris stands on abortion
Democrats will be hoping that Harris, if she is the nominee, will have gender in her favour among Democrat voters, particularly since Roe v Wade was overturned by a Supreme Court with three judges appointed by Trump, who boasted this year, ‘We broke Roe v Wade’.
Beginning in late 2023, Harris has embarked on a national tour to highlight the threats to reproductive rights posed by a second Trump administration – an issue that Biden has been criticized for shying away from. Biden has defended Roe v Wade, but has said he is “not big on abortion”.
“As a woman on the ticket and the first woman VP and a woman of color, and then secondly, as an AG, she is strongest when her profile is fighting and prosecuting the case. People really like her in that mode,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic party strategist and a lead pollster on the 2020 Biden campaign told the Guardian in March. “She’s so comfortable saying the word ‘abortion’. She’s so comfortable leaning in and speaking to the repercussions.”
Trump has run against and defeated a woman before – Hillary Clinton. After Roe v Wade, more people may be motivated by the possibility of a clearly pro-abortion rights woman president. It will likely also, however, motivate people who anti-abortion and otherwise sexist to vote for Trump.
Israel Defence Minister Yoav Gallant late on Sunday thanked Biden for his “unwavering support” for Israel.
“Your steadfast backing, especially during the war, has been invaluable. We are grateful for your leadership and friendship”, he said on X.
Since the Hamas attack against Israel 7 October, in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 kidnapped, Israel’s campaign has killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza and wounded more than 88,000, according to local health officials. Malnutrition and disease have become widespread as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians cram into squalid tent camps.
All state Democratic party chairs endorse Harris
All 50 state Democratic party chairs have endorsed Harris to be the party’s new presidential nominee to run against Republican nominee and former president, Donald Trump, Reuters reports.
The chairs held a conference call after President Joe Biden announced he was stepping aside as the party’s candidate.
“Following President Biden’s announcement, our members immediately assembled to unite behind the candidate who has a track record of winning tough elections, and who is a proven leader on the issues that matter to Americans: reproductive freedom, gun violence prevention, climate protection, justice reform, and rebuilding the economy,” said Ken Martin, president of the Association of State Democratic Committees, in a statement.
What the polling says
In a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, Harris and Trump were tied with 44% support each in a July 15-16 Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted immediately after the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump. Trump led Biden 43% to 41% in that same poll, though the 2 percentage point difference was not meaningful considering the poll’s 3-point margin of error.
An average across recent polling reported shows Harris trailing Trump by 2 points, with 46% to 48%, the New York Times reports, though Biden trailed Trump by three points, 44% to 47%.
Polling conducted in Swing states after the Trump assassination attempt and before Biden stepped down dropped out had Harris hypothetically behind Trump one point in Pennsylvania, and winning by five points in Virginia. She polled better than Biden among women, younger voters and Black voters, the New York Times reports.
Her lead among black voters when compared to Trump is 64 points, according to an NBC news poll. Trump leads among white voters by 16 points, compared to a 14 point lead against Biden among white voters.
CNN anchor Abby Phillip reports that 40,000 people joined a call organised by Win With Black Women, which describes itself as a “collective of intergenerational, intersectional Black women leaders throughout the nation”:
40,000 people on the Win With Black Women call after Biden steps aside and endorsed VP Harris for the nomination. Wild.
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) July 22, 2024
Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic strategist and longtime congressional aide, says Harris will be able to mount “a more energetic campaign with excitement from younger voters and people of colour”.
A former prosecutor and California attorney general as well as a former US senator, Harris would be able to use “her years of litigation experience to effectively prosecute Trump in the court of public opinion,” Mollineau told Reuters.
Chip Felkel, a Republican strategist, told Reuters it would be a mistake for the Trump campaign to assume Harris could serve as a simple stand-in for Biden, because of her potential appeal to different parts of the electorate.
Biden dropped out after looking at internal polling – report
A source has told Reuters that top aides showed Biden internal polling with the jarring news on Saturday night that he was not just trailing in all six critical swing states that could decide the election but also collapsing in places like Virginia and Minnesota where Democrats had not planned on needing to spend massive resources.
Biden changed his mind after “poring over” the data, Reuters reports.
Updated
MAGA Inc switches Biden TV ads with one attacking Harris on migration, inflation
Make America Great Again Inc, a super PAC backing Trump, said on Sunday it was pulling anti-Biden television ads that had been set to run in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania and replacing them with an ad attacking Harris, Reuters reports.
The 30-second ad accuses Harris of hiding Biden’s infirmity from the public, and it seeks to pin the administration’s record solely on her. “Kamala knew Joe couldn’t do the job, so she did it. Look what she got done: a border invasion, runaway inflation, the American Dream dead,” the narrator says.
Trump, known for using insulting and sometimes offensive language to attack his opponents, gave supporters at a rally in Michigan on Saturday a taste of the insults he is likely to fling at Harris in the coming days.
“I call her laughing Kamala. You ever watch a laugh? She’s crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh. She’s crazy. She’s nuts,” he said.
Updated
Trump campaign pivots to Harris, will focus on immigration and the economy
Trump will try to show swing voters that his likely new rival has her fingerprints all over two issues he is counting on for victory in November: immigration and the cost of living, Reuters reports.
Sources within the Trump campaign told Reuters it will cast Harris, the likely Democratic candidate after President Joe Biden quit the race on Sunday, as the “co-pilot” of administration polices it says are behind both sources of voter discontent.
Sources told Reuters that Trump’s campaign had for weeks been preparing for Harris should Biden drop out and she win her party’s nomination.
“Harris will be easier to beat than Joe Biden would have been,” Trump told CNN shortly after Biden’s announcement on Sunday. Trump’s campaign has signaled it will tie her as tightly as possible to Biden’s immigration policy, which Republicans say is to blame for a sharp increase in the numbers of people crossing the southern border with Mexico illegally.
The second line of attack will revolve around the economy. Public opinion polls consistently show Americans are unhappy with high food and fuel costs as well as interest rates that have made buying a home less affordable.
“She’s the co-pilot of the Biden vision,” said one Trump adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity during last week’s Republican National Convention, where a unified party anointed Trump as its nominee in the White House race.
Harris and Schumer spoke Sunday afternoon - report
Key Democrats believe Harris would benefit from what some call a “mini-primary”, the Associated Press is reporting, saying, “They argue a fast primary campaign would showcase to the American people, party donors and skeptics that Harris is best for the job, and give would-be contenders a chance to compete — or at least debut as potential running mates.”
Harris was making calls late in the day to congressional lawmakers and gain support, including from Representative Annie Kuster of New Hampshire – the chair of the New Democrat Coalition, a moderate caucus on Capitol Hill – who endorsed Harris Sunday.
Harris and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke Sunday afternoon, the AP reports, citing a person granted anonymity to discuss the private conversation.
What is Project 2025?
In Harris’s statement announcing that she would be running for the nomination, she referenced Project 2025.
“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,” Harris said.
If you are not across Project 2025, it is a roadmap for a potential second Trump presidency that details – across more than 900 pages – how Trump and his allies could dismantle and disrupt the US government. It suggests ridding the federal ranks of many appointed roles and stacking agencies instead with more political appointees aligned with and more beholden to Trump’s policy prescriptions.
Led by the rightwing Heritage Foundation, the project showcases a federal government that cracks down intensely on immigration, vanquishes LGBTQ+ and abortion rights, diminishes environmental protections, overhauls financial policy and takes aggressive action against China.
Here is an explainer by my colleague Rachel Leingang:
ActBlue funding passes $60 million – reports
Democrat strategists and journalists are reporting that the money raised by Democrat donors on liberal political action committee ActBlue in the hours since Biden announced that he was dropping out of the race and named Kamala Harris as his pick for nominee has now passed $60 million. The Guardian has not verified this independently.
ActBlue has not announced a new figure yet, since saying that $46.7m had been raised since 9pm ET – a figure it said was the highest of the 2024 campaign so far.
In the last nine hours online donations to the Harris presidential campaign have reached around $60 million. The haul for the first 24 hours is going to be an extraordinary number, surely record-setting.
— Kurt Andersen (@KBAndersen) July 22, 2024
Joe Biden’s official campaign website, joebiden.com now redirects to an ActBlue donations page.
The New York Times reports that donations have passed $50 million. The only other day where $50m was raised in a single day was after Ruth Bader-Ginsberg died, Democrat pollster and strategist Matt McDermott said on X earlier – the Guardian has not confirmed this independently.
Updated
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live US politics coverage following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he will be withdrawing from the race – but seeing out his term as president – and his endorsement of his Vice President, Kamala Harris.
“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,” Harris said in a statement announcing that she would be running.
Harris reportedly sent a fundraising email that began, “I am running to be President of the United States”.
Democrat donations spiked sharply following Biden’s announcement. The liberal political action committee ActBlue announced that Democrats had donated $46.7m in the seven hours since Biden announced that he would withdraw to 9pm ET, saying it was the biggest fundraising day of the 2024 election cycle.
Reports emerged later that the total had ticked over to $50m – making it one of the two biggest fundraising days in the history of the PAC, with the other being after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsbgerg died.
Meanwhile senior Democrats, including some of those who have been named as possible contenders for the presidential or vice-presidential nomination, endorsed Kamala Harris for the nomination on Sunday within hours of Biden’s announcement.
Shortly after Biden stepped aside he firmly endorsed Harris, who would make history as the nation’s first Black and South Asian woman to become a major party’s presidential nominee. Other endorsements flowed from Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, the first major female presidential nominee, and prominent US senators, a wide swath of House representatives and members of the influential Congressional Black Caucus.
Among top potential contenders, the governors Gavin Newsom of California, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Roy Cooper of North Carolina all endorsed Harris on Sunday. New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also endorsed Harris, after holding out against calling for Biden to resign.
Donald Trump heaped scorn on Biden, saying he “was not fit to run for president, and is certainly not fit to serve”. Top Republicans in Congress, including speaker Mike Johnson and other senior House lawmakers, called on Biden to resign immediately. Notably, Mitch McConnell, the GOP’s Senate minority leader, did not.
More to come.
