After weeks of intraparty division over President Joe Biden's candidacy, delegates to the upcoming Democratic National Convention on Tuesday rallied rapidly and enthusiastically behind Vice President Kamala Harris as their party's new presidential candidate.
Suddenly, some delegates said, they have a lot more to look forward to at their national meeting in Chicago.
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“Before it felt like a convention, but now it feels like a party,” said Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, a Democratic delegate from Arizona.
Since Biden announced Sunday that he was dropping his reelection bid and endorsing Harris, the vice president already has secured the support of enough delegates to become her party’s nominee against Republican Donald Trump, according to an Associated Press survey. In most states, Democratic officials said their entire convention delegation is behind Harris.
Cázares-Kelly, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation and the Pima County recorder in charge of overseeing voter registration, said her enthusiasm for Harris is both personal and practical. With just two months left before ballots must be mailed to overseas voters, she said Democrats needed to unify behind a candidate as soon as possible.
And "as an Indigenous woman, watching a Black woman — woman of color — advance to the highest office in the country, it is very exciting,” she said.
Michigan delegate David Coulter, the Oakland County executive, said he is fully behind Harris but still was “stunned by how quickly the party has circled around to support her."
“We’re the Democratic Party. There’s a lot of opinions and a lot of viewpoints, and so I thought maybe it would take a little while for people to galvanize, maybe even all the way to the convention” scheduled to begin Aug. 19, Coulter said. “But she has very masterfully secured support.”
Harris also has brought in fresh dollars for Democrats. The Harris campaign and national Democratic committees combined to raise more than $100 million — from 1.1 million donors — between Sunday afternoon and Monday evening, the campaign said Tuesday.
On Tuesday, Harris was campaigning in the presidential battleground of Wisconsin. A day earlier, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler said the state party had raised $300,000 in the past week, including $140,000 since Biden dropped out of the race.
“The level of unity and energy is through the roof,” Wikler said. “There is a surge of focus, of enthusiasm, a flowering of the kind of unity we’re going to need to beat Donald Trump."
Harris still faces some headwinds in a campaign against Trump.
Shortly before Biden dropped out, a poll by AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that while about 6 in 10 Democrats believed Harris would do a good job as a president only about 3 in 10 adults overall said she would do well. The poll showed that about half of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of Harris, which was a little better than for Biden and Trump.
Trump’s campaign already has linked Harris to many of Biden's policies, mostly notably immigration at the U.S. southern border. Biden tapped Harris to handle migration issues in 2021.
Democratic delegates expressed hope that Harris' candidacy will energize younger voters. Harris, who is 59, is 22 years younger than Biden. That would make the 78-year-old Trump the oldest candidate in the race.
“I think we’re going to draw younger folks in who were going to be disappointed, and now I think they’re really going to be excited and engaged,” said Toni Easter, 57, of suburban St. Louis.
Jennifer Parrish Taylor, a first-time delegate from Oregon, said she was grateful Biden threw his support to Harris.
“As a Black woman, it’s not often you see white men give up power,” Parrish Taylor said. “It’s really emotional, because I never thought I would see a black woman president candidate be at the top of the ticket, and I’m just blown away.”
“I think it has energized the base in a different way, that we haven’t seen in quite a long time,” Parrish Taylor said.
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Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; Sally Ho in Seattle; Sharon Lurye in New Orleans; Jim Salter in O'Fallon, Missouri; and Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan, contributed to this report.