Election 2024 Latest: DNC chair says Harris secured enough delegate votes to become party nominee

Vice President Kamala Harris had secured enough votes from Democratic delegates to become the party’s nominee for president, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said Friday.

The online voting process doesn’t end until Monday, but Harris' campaign marked the moment when she crossed the threshold to have the majority of delegates’ votes.

The announcement came after the campaign said earlier that it raised $310 million last month, an eyepopping sum showing that donors who once seemed spooked about the prospects for November’s election with President Joe Biden are now offering mountains of cash to boost his former No. 2.

The haul by Harris, the Democratic National Committee and affiliated entities far outpaced Republican former President Donald Trump, whose campaign and assorted committees said they took in $138.7 million for July.

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Here's the Latest:

One of President Joe Biden’s most trusted advisers is coming back to the White House to finish out the term.

Mike Donilon has known the president for decades and is often the last person the president turns to for counsel. He left the White House earlier this year to help with Biden’s reelection campaign.

But now that Biden has stepped away from the race, Donilon will return to government to resume his post and help the president through the end of his term in January, a White House official said. Biden asked Donilon to return.

Biden has said he wants to run through the tape of his final six months.

On Thursday, Biden announced a massive, 24-person multi-national prisoner swap that returned home captive Americans including the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich who was jailed by Russia in 2023.

— This post has been updated to add that President Biden asked Donilon to return.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is jousting verbally with Republican Donald Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.

The repartee started speaking Friday at a news conference on higher education policy at Cheyney University near Philadelphia when a reporter said Vance had called Shapiro a “really bad impression of Barack Obama.”

“That what he said?” Shapiro asked. “Barack Obama was probably our most gifted orator of my time. So it’s kind of a weird insult, I guess.”

Shapiro then launched into a criticism of Vance, calling him a “phony-baloney” and saying, “It is real hard being honest with the American people when you’re not honest with yourself.”

“He doesn’t know what he believes and that is why it is impossible for him to articulate a coherent message to the American people. Because he doesn’t believe it,” Shapiro said.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, under consideration to become Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in the November election, batted away question after question about it.

He wouldn’t answer questions about what qualities he’d bring to the ticket, whether he’d accept an offer or whether he’s planning on meeting with Harris over the weekend.

“Ya’ll think I’m going to tell you what I’m doing? Come on,” he said Friday to laughter from attendees at a news conference on higher education policy at Cheyney University, a historically Black university about 15 miles (24 kilometers) outside Philadelphia.

Shapiro did say that he last spoke to Harris last Sunday and that he hopes to be in attendance at a rally planned for Tuesday in Philadelphia with her and whomever she selects as her vice presidential running mate.

Shapiro canceled a suite of fundraisers he had planned to attend in New York on Saturday, although his press secretary declined to say why.

Friday's announcement that Harris had secured enough votes from Democratic delegates to become the party's nominee came as her campaign reorganized its senior staff — bringing on a new coterie of senior advisers and veterans of the successful campaigns of former President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

The campaign is bringing on David Plouffe, who was campaign manager for Obama’s 2008 presidential bid, as a senior adviser focusing on the pathway for the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win, and former Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter, who will advise on messaging and strategy for the Harris campaign.

Plouffe will end his consulting efforts on behalf of TikTok, the controversial social media app, as well as a podcast with 2016 Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway that had drawn scrutiny and criticism, according to a person familiar with his plans who spoke on condition of anonymity.

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Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report from Washington.

Harris says she’s “honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee,” but she said she’ll formally accept the presidential nomination next week.

Harris joined a campaign livestream on Friday after Democratic National Convention chairman Jaime Harrison said she’d reached enough delegate votes to become the nominee. Voting continues until Monday.

The vice president said that she’s excited about the future but “we know we have a lot of work to do.”

“The power is with the people,” Harris added. “We are going to win this election and it is going to take all of us.”

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign declared Friday that she had secured enough votes from party delegates to become the Democratic presidential nominee.

The online voting process doesn’t end until Monday. But the campaign marked the moment with a livestream when Harris crossed the threshold of 2,350 delegate votes. Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison made the announcement during the livestream.

He says Harris “will be the nominee of the Democratic party following the close of voting.”

Harris is poised to be the first woman of color at the top of a major party’s ticket.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign said Friday it was preparing to mark a “special historic moment” as Democratic delegates cast online ballots to formally make her their party’s nominee.

The campaign announced that it would hold a call with supporters on Friday afternoon.

The Democratic National Committee has been pushing ahead with a virtual vote to nominate Harris, nearing the culmination of a turbulent process that was upended by President Joe Biden’s decision not to seek reelection.

Delegates to the Democratic National Convention began voting via secure email on Thursday, and the voting will remain open until Monday evening. Harris has not yet chosen her running mate, and she’s expected to interview candidates over the weekend.

The formal nomination is expected to be finalized by Aug. 7 even though the party’s convention in Chicago isn’t scheduled to begin for more than two more weeks. Democratic officials have said the accelerated timeline was necessary because of an Aug. 7 deadline to ensure candidates appear on the Ohio ballot.

Kamala Harris has range. She can grill nominees for the Supreme Court or meet with foreign dignitaries, then pivot to hosting a Diwali celebration or dancing enthusiastically alongside an HBCU-styled marching band.

It is a dexterity that Harris, the first Black woman and Asian American to serve as vice president, developed as a person of color to navigate the corridors of power or Main Street in a nation where race and identity influence how one is received or embraced.

Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, is an adroit code-switcher, a term that can include deliberately adjusting one’s speech style and expression to optimize relatability and ensure she gets a message across.

Former President Donald Trump, during a contentious interview session at a meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists, showed no familiarity with the concept. He implied that Harris is inauthentic for embracing all aspects of her heritage. His failure to recognize code-switching also speaks to a prevailing belief that whiteness, often correlated with speaking in plainly enunciated English, is the default in our politics and democracy.

▶ Read more about the role code-switching plays in politics

President Joe Biden says he’s spoken to Vice President Kamala Harris about her search for a vice presidential candidate for 2024.

But when it comes to weighing in on the qualities she should look for in a candidate, “I’ll let her work that out,” he said on Friday.

Biden was speaking on the South Lawn before he left for Wilmington, Delaware, this weekend.

Harris is the likely Democratic presidential nominee after Biden dropped out of the race. She has said she will announce her choice soon; she’s supposed to go out campaigning with her running mate next week.

Kyle Rittenhouse, who was embraced by Trump after shooting three men during a 2020 protest against police brutality in Wisconsin, won’t be returning the favor with his vote this fall.

The 21-year-old, who was acquitted of all charges in the Kenosha shootings, said he plans to write in a libertarian candidate instead — former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul.

“Unfortunately Donald Trump had bad advisers making him bad on the Second Amendment, and that is my issue,” Rittenhouse said in a video posted on the social platform X. “If you cannot be completely uncompromisable on the Second Amendment, I will not vote for you and I will write somebody else in.”

Some pro-Trump influencers online shared their disgust at Rittenhouse, saying he owed Trump more for defending him after the shootings.

Rittenhouse killed two men and wounded a third in the protest. In court, he argued he opened fire in self-defense after the men attacked him. The case became a flashpoint in the debate over guns, vigilantism and racial injustice in the U.S.

Trump defended Rittenhouse at the time of the shootings and congratulated him after the verdict, saying, “If that’s not self defense, nothing is.”

Olympic gymnastics champion Simone Biles has appeared to enter the 2024 U.S. political fray, with a post that appears to clap back at Donald Trump’s comment about “Black jobs.”

“I love my black job,” Biles posted on the social platform X on Friday, in response to a post from singer Ricky Davila, who had said: “Iconic photo of the GOAT mastering her black job and collecting Gold Medals.”

The exchange came hours after Biles held off Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade to win the all-around Paris Olympics gymnastics finals, taking home her ninth gold medal.

Trump has been criticized for arguing initially during his debate with President Joe Biden last month that migrants were taking “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs” from Americans, angering critics who called it a racist and insulting attempt to expand his appeal beyond his white conservative base.

When pushed by moderators on what constituted a “Black job,” Trump told attendees at this week’s National Association of Black Journalists conference that “a Black job is anybody that has a job,” drawing groans from the room.

Trump’s campaign did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the message from Biles, whose representatives also did not immediately return messages seeking further comment on her post or her thoughts generally about the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

Abraham Hamadeh has defeated Blake Masters in the Republican primary for a U.S. House seat that saw a rare dual endorsement from former President Donald Trump. Hamadeh has a good chance of winning the seat in November because the northwest Phoenix district leans conservative.

Elsewhere, a critic of Arizona’s voting operations in 2020 and 2022 has unseated an incumbent election official in Maricopa County in a GOP primary. And a Republican candidate vulnerable because of abortion politics has clenched her party’s bid in a state legislative race. In the U.S. Senate race, Kari Lake has secured the GOP nomination for an open seat. Primaries in two congressional races are still too early to call.

Tennessee state Rep. Gloria Johnson has won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and will face off against Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn in November, pitting a survivor of a Republican-led expulsion effort over a gun control protest against a close ally of former President Donald Trump.

Johnson defeated three primary opponents, including Marquita Bradshaw, a Memphis community activist and organizer who notably won the Democratic Senate nomination in 2020 and then lost to Republican Bill Hagerty by a wide margin. Tennessee’s primary will also determine whether Republican Rep. Andy Ogles will be able to defeat a well-funded opponent, Nashville council member Courtney Johnston, as he pursues a second term in Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District.