Less than two weeks after Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, his 52-year-old vice president is in full control of the party, having emerged as the only Democrat in the running to challenge Republican Donald Trump in November.
Just under 4,000 delegates, the grassroots activists and politicians allocated during the primary process, sent in signatures backing Harris to be on the ballot for the five-day electronic vote.
No other Democrats have stepped forward to challenge her elevation to the top of the ticket, making her confirmation as the first Black and South Asian woman ever to secure a major party’s nomination a formality.
She won the support of 99 percent of the delegates who signed petitions, the Democratic National Committee ,DNC, said in a statement, while no one else met the qualifying threshold of 300 signatures.
The announcement could come late , as she hits the campaign trail for a swing across seven crucial battleground states with her newly minted running mate, who has not yet been announced.
US media reported that she would kick off the tour in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, although the DNC did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation.
The 2024 nominating system is largely as it was in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic prevented a large in-person convention, but it is still unusual.
The DNC swapped to a virtual process because of Ohio’s deadline — Wednesday next week — for major parties to submit the names of their certified candidates for the November election.
Much remains unclear about the announcement of the results, however.
The DNC has not revealed if the vote will be livestreamed or if a rolling tally will be available to the public, and has not disclosed whether it would make the results public before the end of the voting period if they were available.