Newfound presidential hopeful Kamala Harris addressed her staff on Monday evening from Delaware, the site of her new campaign headquarters after President Joe Biden’s weekend decision not to seek re-election this fall.
A small crowd joined Harris in Wilmington, Biden’s home away from Washington, where she touted her record as a prosecutor on many of the same types of cases now looming over former President Donald Trump, whom she is likely to face in the general election.
Biden appeared only by telephone, voicing his support for Harris. In just over 24 hours, she has broken presidential fundraising records and has already received endorsements from enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination.
“It is my great honor to have Joe’s endorsement in this race and it is my intention to go out and earn this nomination and to win,” Harris said to rounds of applause during the livestreamed event.
“In the days and weeks ahead, I, together with you, will do everything in my power to unite our Democratic Party to unite our nation and to win this election.”
I’m in Wilmington, Delaware at our campaign headquarters to speak with staff. Tune in now. https://t.co/HYuVc0BVnK
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 22, 2024
In her remarks, Harris noted that her record of prosecuting sex crimes and fraud while serving as attorney general of California contrasts sharply with Trump, who has been found civilly liable for sexual battery and criminally guilty for fraudulent hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. She also pitted her environmental record against what she described as a pay-to-play scheme initiated by Trump with oil companies during his campaigning this spring.
Harris added that she put a number of for-profit colleges out of business while Trump ran his own for-profit educational institution in New York, Trump University. The real estate training organization was successfully sued for fraud before his 2016 presidential campaign—a fact not lost on Harris.
“All of that being said, this campaign is not just about us vs. Donald Trump. There is more to this campaign than that,” she said, referring to her nascent campaign as an extension of Biden’s run.
“Our campaign has always been about two different versions of what we see as the future of our country… One focused on the future, the other focused on the past. Donald Trump wants to take our country backward to a time before many of our fellow Americans had full freedoms and rights.”
Harris noted that she plans to fight for anti-poverty and pro-housing measures, as well as healthcare reforms, gun control, voting rights, and building up the middle class—all measures she says Trump and his supposed allies want to thwart. (She specifically cited the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a right-wing policy agenda that Trump has distanced himself from in recent weeks.)
Though the Republican Party has newly disavowed a national abortion ban as part of its platform for the 2024 election cycle, Harris painted reproductive freedom as another contrast between her campaign and that of her opponent.
“If Trump gets the chance, he will sign a national abortion ban to outlaw abortion in every single state, but we are not going to let that happen,” she said. “When Congress passes a law to restore reproductive freedom, as president of the United States, I will sign it into law.”
Harris also used her staff speech to place her campaign within the vanguard of freedom fighters throughout American history, “from our founders to our framers to the abolitionists and the suffragettes to the Freedom Riders and farm workers.”
“Now I say the baton is in our hands.”
Despite strong rhetoric on a prominent new stage, Harris is currently in an underdog situation against Trump, who leads in several national polls. Harris is seen by her party as the better-than-Biden candidate who can swing important states come November, but most Americans remain skeptical that a woman will win a presidential election in their lifetime.
Harris has also struggled with approval ratings throughout her tenure as vice president, with slightly more than half of Americans regarding her as ineffective. Her race and gender are thought to be factors in the negative assessments of her tenure, which she will likely seek to allay by picking a White male running mate.
As of Tuesday morning, the list of possible vice presidential candidates for the Democrats has thinned only slightly, with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer telling local media on Monday that she’s “not going anywhere.”
That leaves a host of other governors, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on the theoretical shortlist for Harris’ pick, though she has given no hint that a decision is imminent. For now, her campaign duties will be combined with her role as vice president under Biden, who has remained largely silent since his Sunday announcement.
Despite calls for his immediate resignation from the Speaker of the House, Republican Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, Biden has said he intends to finish out his term. He is set to address the nation later this week on his decision to drop out of the presidential race.
Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.
