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Vice President Kamala Harris has secured well over the required number of Democratic delegate votes needed to secure her party’s nomination to challenge Republican Donald Trump in the 2024 Presidential election. Delegates, selected to represent their states or communities at their party’s nominating convention and tasked with selecting the party’s candidate for the November ballot, typically consist of early supporters, party activists, or political leaders, as reported by USA Today.
Following President Joe Biden’s endorsement of Harris after his withdrawal announcement, Democrats rallied behind the California native. According to an Associated Press survey, Harris, the first Black and South Asian Vice President, has garnered 2,688 delegates, significantly exceeding the 1,976 delegates needed for nomination, with 54 delegates still undecided.
Harris is now the presumptive nominee, but her path to the presidency still demands diligent effort. Convention delegates retain the freedom to vote for their preferred candidate at the August convention or during a potential virtual roll call before the Democratic National Convention set to take place in Chicago.
Support for Kamala Harris is strong among all Black Democrats
Just a few hours after Harris accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, NewsOne senior editor and author asha bandele joined an off-the-record private Zoom call for Black women led by the legendary Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, and Congresswoman and Joyce Beatty (D-Oh), and which featured Rep.Jasmine Crockett (D-Tx). The call, roughly two hours long, originally allotted for 1,000 guests grew exponentially, causing the organizers to open up platforms to accommodate all. The pride and excitement was palpable, bandele reported.
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Further, she shared with NewsOne that “Donna Brazile was masterful in explaining how Black women could help ensure the Vice President had the votes to secure the nomination, but the truly incredible thing was that because more than 1,000 women tried to get on, systems started crashing and in the end, it took likely an hour—and a whole different platform to get us together,” bandele said. “But it was truly amazing to bear witness, in this age of impatience, how everyone stayed on, giving grace. It was like no one wanted to release the moment. By the end of the call, 1,000 people became 44,000 people.And of course, in under two days, the votes to ensure the Vice President’s nomination were secured.”
Passion for the Vice President was also strong during a conference call held Monday night. In that gathering, the target audience was Black men. Hosted by Roland Martin, at least 35,000 Black men joined. Speakers included Gov. Wes Moore, Benjamin Crump, Marc Morial, and Derrick Johnson who leads the NAACP. They were deeply impactful in demonstrating how key every single vote was, and that there was no sitting this one out, bandele learned from one of the men who was present. More, she told NewsOne that while there were links to donate to the campaign available, there was no real push to donate.
Nevertheless, at least $1.3m was raised, bandele was told.
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