United States President Joe Biden has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the 2024 presidential race, opting not to seek a second term.
In a statement on his official X handle Sunday evening, Biden wrote, “My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my vice president. 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.”
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For years, Kamala Harris faced criticism that she was not up to the job of being a heartbeat away from the presidency. Now, she finds herself celebrated by Democrats as their best hope to stop Donald Trump’s comeback. Despite blazing a trail as the first woman, black, and South Asian vice president in U.S. history, the 59-year-old Democrat has long struggled with approval ratings as bad or worse than President Joe Biden’s.
The last 12 months, however, have revealed a transformed Harris. And with Biden’s endorsement of Harris after stunning the world by dropping his own reelection bid Sunday, she’s suddenly on the cusp of history. Harris will hope she has done the hard work to earn her full party’s backing in the midst of the crisis.
As the ageing Biden faded over the last year, his “veep” emerged as a force on the campaign trail, pushing for abortion rights and reaching out to core voters, including suburban women and black men. With a fondness for the f-bomb and her family nickname of “Momala” going viral, she has also finally started to cut through the noise to voters who previously barely paid attention.
She has also won plaudits in party circles by staying loyal to the 81-year-old president during the last few weeks, even as political vultures circled over his candidacy. She is now likely to face Trump—a brutal battle against a candidate who defeated Hillary Clinton in her bid to become the first female commander in chief in 2016. The fact that Harris has blamed much of the criticism of her by Republicans on racism and sexism would likely make a win feel even more vindicating for her.
Trump and other Republicans have notably stepped up their attacks on her as Biden’s position weakened and polls showed Harris would fare better against him than Biden.
A child of immigrant parents — her father was from Jamaica and her mother from India — Harris grew up in Oakland, California, in an activist household that saw her attend her first rallies in a stroller. Her focus on rights and justice saw her build an impressive CV, becoming California’s first black attorney general and the first woman of South Asian heritage elected to the U.S. Senate.
Harris then went up against Biden in the 2020 primaries. In one stinging attack, she criticized him for allegedly opposing the bussing of students to segregated schools. “There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day. And that little girl was me,” she said in a barbed attack on her future boss.
But as his running mate, she consolidated the coalition that helped defeat the incumbent Trump in 2020. Her transition to the White House, however, proved difficult. Critics said she was underwhelming and gaffe-prone in a job that has been known to flummox many officeholders.
Struggling to carve out a role, she was tasked by Biden with getting to the roots of the illegal migration problem, but fumbled and then got defensive in response to a question during a visit to the Mexican border. Unusually high staff turnover fed rumors of discontent in the vice presidential office. And Republicans relentlessly targeted her as being unfit to take over should the worst happen to America’s oldest-ever president, often resorting to stereotypes her supporters branded as sexist and racist.
Harris told the Wall Street Journal in February, “I am ready to serve. There’s no question about that.”
Things began to change as the 2024 race got underway. Harris, with Biden’s endorsement, now faces a challenging path ahead as she seeks to become the first female president of the United States.
