US Vice President Kamala Harris has swiftly consolidated Democratic support for her presidential bid, securing commitments from hundreds of convention delegates, announcing a massive fundraising haul and earning endorsements from top party figures after US President Joe Biden abruptly left the race.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has remained influential since stepping down as the party's House of Representatives leader in 2022, backed Ms Harris, adding to a series of endorsements from key Democrats.
Ms Pelosi played a leading role in persuading Mr Biden, 81, to step aside amid concerns over his acuity and ability to beat Republican Donald Trump or to serve another four years.
Ms Pelosi, 84, saluted Mr Biden in a statement, adding: "We must unify and charge forward to resoundingly defeat Donald Trump and enthusiastically elect Kamala Harris as the next President of the United States."
The campaign aims to secure commitments from a majority of the nearly 4,000 Democratic delegates to next month's Democratic Party convention by Wednesday evening, sources told Reuters, effectively wrapping up the nomination.
Campaign officials and allies have made hundreds of calls urging delegates to nominate Ms Harris for president in the 5 November election.
Ms Harris's campaign said it raised $81 million (€74 million) in the 24 hours following Mr Biden's exit, the most for a single day in the 2024 campaign for either party.
Virtually all of the prominent Democrats who had been seen as potential challengers to Ms Harris have declared support for her, including Governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gavin Newsom of California and Andy Beshear of Kentucky.
Mr Biden's departure was the latest shock to a White House race that included his disastrous 27 June debate performance against Mr Trump and the 13 July near-assassination of Mr Trump by a gunman during a campaign stop.
Biden's 'unmatched’ legacy
Ms Harris, 59, lauded Mr Biden for his service to the country in her first public appearance since he abandoned his re-election bid yesterday and endorsed her as his successor.
"Joe Biden's legacy over the last three years is unmatched in modern history," Ms Harris said at a White House event to honour college athletes.
Ms Harris did not specifically refer to her new status as the leading Democratic candidate for president.
She said Mr Biden, who tested positive for Covid-19 last week, was feeling better.
Democrats hope Ms Harris can re-energise what had been a flagging presidential campaign, days after the Republican National Convention offered a stark display of Mr Trump's dominance over his party.
Ms Harris travelled to Delaware today to visit what had been the Biden campaign headquarters and now serves as her main campaign office.
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Ms Harris, who is Black and Asian American, would fashion an entirely new dynamic with Mr Trump, 78, offering a vivid generational and cultural contrast.
The Trump campaign has been preparing for her possible rise for weeks, sources told Reuters.
It sent out a detailed critique of her record on immigration and other issues, accusing her of being more liberal than Mr Biden.
It alleged that Ms Harris favoured abolishing the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and decriminalising border crossings, backed the so-called Green New Deal, supported the administration's electric vehicle mandates and encouraged "defund the police" efforts.
Some of those were positions Ms Harris adopted as an unsuccessful presidential candidate in the 2020 election when she was running on a more liberal agenda than Mr Biden but were not positions that the administration assumed, particularly with regard to border security and law enforcement issues.
Mr Biden, the oldest person ever to occupy the Oval Office, said he would remain in the presidency until his term ends on 20 January 2025.
Ms Harris spent yesterday working the phones, speaking with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who is a potential vice presidential running mate, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and Congressional Black Caucus chair Representative Steven Horsford, according to sources.
Mr Trump, whose false claims that his 2020 loss to Mr Biden was the result of fraud inspired the 6 January 2021, assault on the US Capitol, questioned Democrats' right to change candidates.
"They stole the race from Biden after he won it in the primaries," Mr Trump said on his Truth Social site.
Mr Biden won the party's nomination in 2020, picked Ms Harris to be his vice president and went on to beat Mr Trump.
She is a former California attorney general and a former US senator.
Ms Harris is expected to stick largely to Mr Biden's foreign policy playbook on such issues as China, Iran and Ukraine, but could strike a tougher tone with Israel over the Gaza war if she wins the November election.
She has been outspoken on abortion rights, an issue that resonates with younger voters and more liberal Democrats.
Proponents argue she would mobilise those voters, consolidate Black support and bring sharp debating skills to prosecute the political case against the former president.
More than 44,000 Black women and allies, including Representatives Maxine Waters, Jasmine Crockett and Joyce Beatty, joined a three-hour call yesterday in support of Ms Harris's bid, raising more than $1.5 million (€1.3 million) for her presidential campaign, organisers told Reuters.
But some Democrats were concerned about the country's long history of racial and gender discrimination.
The US has not elected a woman president in its nearly 250-year-old history.
Mr Biden's withdrawal leaves less than four months to wage a campaign.
Despite the early show of support for Ms Harris, talk of an open convention when Democrats gather in Chicago on 19 August was not totally silenced.
Biden pulled out after polling data showed him trailing, say sources
US President Joe Biden gave most of his aides a mere moment's notice of his decision to quit the race for re-election yesterday after an agonising 48 hours poring over polling data which showed his path to victory was closing, two sources have told Reuters.
Only the day before, Mr Biden was telling many aides that he would continue campaigning to defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in November.
In the words of one source: "The message was proceed with everything, full speed ahead".
After digesting the polling data late on Saturday, Mr Biden changed his mind.
He gathered his senior White House and campaign team for a call shortly before 1.45pm local time (6.45pm Irish time) yesterday afternoon and moments later made his announcement public in a letter to all Americans.
One source said top aides showed Mr 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.
Mr Biden was isolating at his home at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, since testing positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday.
Still nursing a cough, he had spent most of the weekend stewing over Democratic pressure to force him to leave the race, aides said.
With him were long-time senior aides Annie Tomasini, Steve Ricchetti and Mike Donilon and a top aide to first lady Jill Biden, Anthony Bernal.
Once resolved, he shared his decision on the call by reading the letter he would soon release.
"He read the letter to us and wanted us to understand his thinking. He said he had wrestled with it over the last 48 hours," said one official.
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Biden's gruelling climb to top of US political ladder
Immediately after that call, White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients called senior White House staff together to inform them of the decision.
"This was really closely held," the official said. "It came as a surprise to most White House folks."
Mr Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had already spoken multiple times during the day yesterday, a person familiar with their conversations said.
At 1.46pm, Mr Biden made his bombshell announcement.
Divided Democratic party
The decision followed a disastrous debate Mr Biden had with Mr Trump that raised questions about the mental acuity of the 81-year-old Democratic president.
After the debate, Mr Biden began losing ground to Mr Trump in battleground states, and Mr Biden's campaign was pursuing a razor-thin path to reelection.
"It became hard with the growing opposition within the party. We have to be united going into November. That was a factor," the senior White House official said, while noting there had still been significant support for Mr Biden across the country.
"I'm still processing it," said Marcus Mason, an at-large delegate to the Democratic National Convention in August.
"The president will go down in history as a patriot who put his country and party over his own ambitions."
Mr Biden had been particularly irked at former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom Mr Biden advisers believed was orchestrating a pressure campaign to get him to stand down.
Hours before the announcement, the Biden campaign denied reports he was planning to drop out.
"It is false. And I think that it is false to continue to try to gin up this narrative," Deputy Campaign Manager Quentin Fulks told MSNBC's "The Weekend" yesterday morning.
There were plenty of signs Mr Biden had been thinking about pulling out for several days, with sources saying the Democratic incumbent had been doing some soul searching.
