Washington, D.C. – Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Jaime Harrison announced on Monday that the Democratic Party will deliver a presidential nominee by August 7 and is committed to an “open and fair” nominating process.
Earlier that day, Vice President Kamala Harris swiftly consolidated support for her presidential bid and secured commitments from hundreds of convention delegates. Harris’ campaign aims to wrap up her presidential nomination by Wednesday and secure a majority of the nearly 4,000 convention delegates needed to win, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
President Joe Biden has endorsed Harris as his successor, but he cannot force delegates to follow his lead. Securing delegate support is essential to ensuring Harris replaces Biden on the November ballot as the party’s nominee against Republican Donald Trump.
“I want to assure you that we are committed to an open and fair nominating process,” the DNC’s Harrison told reporters on a conference call. “The work ahead may be unprecedented, but we are prepared to undertake a transparent, swift, and orderly process to move forward as a united Democratic Party.”
Jenna Moore, the chair of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, said a virtual nominating process ahead of the August 19-22 event in Chicago was still necessary. “There is still a need for a virtual component to our nominating process. That has not changed,” she said, explaining an electronic voting system would be used to ensure deadlines were met.
Harris had said earlier that a virtual vote would take place between August 1 and August 5, in order to have the nomination process completed by August 7, the date by which Ohio law had required a nominee to be in place to make the state’s ballot. The campaign subsequently pushed back the deadline to September 1, but party officials said they hoped to beat the August 7 deadline to avoid any legal risk in the key swing state.
“By handling this process swiftly and effectively, we will bring our party together as we head into the convention in Chicago united,” Moore said.
