Harris sparks joy, enthusiasm ahead of presidential election

A new feeling — two parts hope mixed with eight parts excitement — enveloped the Democratic Party this week following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he had decided to drop out of the 2024 presidential election and would, instead, back Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s new presidential nominee. 

Within hours of Biden’s announcement, more than 43,000 Black women had come together on a Zoom call and collectively raised more than $1.5 million for Harris’ campaign. The next day, Black men did the same, pulling in nearly 50,000 Harris supporters. 

As the Associated Press put it: Kamala Harris smashes fundraising record with stunning $81 million haul over 24 hours.” 

Three days later the news broke that Democratic “get out the vote” organizations were experiencing an enormous surge in new voter registrations — especially among young people. 

“Almost 40,000 people registered to vote in the 48 hours after President Biden announced he was suspending his reelection campaign and endorsing Vice President Harris,” The Hill reported Wednesday, citing Vote. org, and adding that, “of the new voter registrations, 83 percent were from people aged 18-34.”

Democrats have rallied around Harris, a former senator and California attorney general who is not just the first woman to hold the office of vice president but also the first Black and Southeast Asian woman elected to the second-highest office in the nation. A poll released this week showed 80% of Democratic voters were in favor of Harris becoming the new Democratic Party presidential nominee, and the vice president has won the support of every Democratic governor and nearly every Democratic senator and representative. By Monday evening, just one day after Biden’s announcement, Harris had received the backing of more than 2,000 pledged delegates — more than the 1,976 delegates needed to win the nomination. 

Unions and other workers groups also threw their support toward Harris, with the Service Employees International Union — the country’s largest private sector union with more than 2 million members — endorsed Harris the same day Biden withdrew his name from the race. The Local 3000 of the United Food and Commercial Workers in the Pacific Northwest did the same, as did the American Federation of Teachers. The United Auto Workers has not made an official endorsement but had previously endorsed Biden and has called Harris “an ally” and “a champion for workers.” 

With issues on the presidential ballot that could negatively impact young people, the environment, women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community and the working class, it is no wonder people — particularly people of color, women and young people – are uniting around Harris, a champion of reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights who has fought for more worker protections; created the Central America Forward initiative that The Week described as having “yielded more than $4.2 billion in private sector commitments to support creating local jobs and other measures to slow the flow of mass migration” into the United States; and gained praise from climate change activists for helping pass “the most significant climate legislation in the history of the world” during her time as vice president. 

It will be interesting to see how Harris’ next big move — securing the nomination and choosing a running mate — will impact this flood of goodwill and enthusiasm for the woman who could become our nation’s first female president. 

If the quotes coming from major Democratic donors are any indication, this presidential election could carry the same feeling of excitement and hope that former President Barack Obama brought to the 2008 campaign. 

“We are so stoked and relieved,” one donor told The Washington Post this week about Harris’ apparent rise to the top of the Democratic ticket. “I haven’t spoken to anyone who feels otherwise. Women are on fire.”  

Let’s hope this enthusiasm continues through November so that we might be able to actually start to come together for the good of all Americans, stop pitting “red” against “blue” as if politics and the future of our country were a simple sports match, and finally put Trump in our rearview mirrors.