Washington: US Vice-President Kamala Harris has passed the threshold to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination in a vote of party delegates. Kamala said she was "honoured to be the presumptive nominee" as the virtual roll call continues ahead of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago later this month.
Kamala is the first black woman and first South Asian woman to become the White House standard-bearer for a major US political party. If she defeats her rival Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, in November she would be America's first female president.
She ran unopposed in the virtual roll call after President Joe Biden stepped aside last month and quickly endorsed her. Several potential rivals followed his lead. Last week, Kamala formally became the nominee after securing the support of 2,350 delegates, the threshold required to earn the nomination. "We believe in the promise of America and that’s what this campaign is about," she said in brief remarks as she crossed the benchmark.
"We are in this, we are on the road and it's not going to be easy, but we’re going to get this done."
In total, Democrats have said 3,923 delegates - or 99% of the participants - plan to vote for her. The rollcall began on Thursday and ended on Monday.
Presidential and vice-presidential nominees are typically anointed at their party conventions, but the relatively late date of the 2024 DNC risks falling afoul of state ballot access laws. Kamala, 59, was born in Oakland, California, and is the first Democratic nominee in the party's nearly 200-year history to hail from a western state.
Kamala pulls in $310 mn, Trump $139
The Harris campaign announced on August 2 that it raised $310 million in July, fueled by small-dollar donations that flowed into the war chest after President Biden bowed out of the race. The July figure - more than double the $138.7 million raised by Trump in the same month – brings the total money raised by Harris and Biden before her to more than $1 billion, the fastest a presidential campaign has crossed that threshold in history, the campaign said.
More than $200 million of the $310 million came in the first week following Biden’s endorsement of Harris, the campaign said. Two-thirds of the July donations came from first-time donors and 94% of the donations were $200 or less, the campaign said.
“This is a history-making haul for a candidate who will make history this November. The tremendous outpouring of support we’ve seen in just a short time makes clear the Harris coalition is mobilized, growing, and ready to put in the work to defeat Trump this November,” said Harris for President Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez. The Harris campaign had $377 million in cash on hand at the end of the month, $50 million more than the Trump campaign’s $327 million.
Silicon Valley unites behind Kamala
Hundreds of Silicon Valley venture capitalists, investors, and tech leaders have rallied to support Kamala for the White House, pushing back at unexpected inroads Trump has made in the tech world through Tesla’s Elon Musk and early PayPal investor and CEO Peter Thiel.
In a statement under the aegis of a group called VCsFor-Kamala, the tech leaders, including Linked-in founder Reid Hoffman, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla said they are united in their support for Kamala in this “pivotal moment”.
“We are pro-business, pro-American dream, pro-entrepreneurship and pro-technological progress...We also believe in democracy as the backbone of our nation. We believe that strong, trustworthy institutions are a feature, not a bug, and that our industry - and every other industry - would collapse without them,” the group said in a statement, now signed by over 700 tech leaders.
