Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle
Obama have endorsed Kamala Harris in
her White House bid, giving the vice president the expected but still crucial
backing of the nation’s two most popular Democrats.
The endorsement, announced Friday in a video showing
Harris accepting a joint phone call from the former first couple, comes as
Harris builds momentum as their party’s likely nominee after President Joe
Biden’s decision to end his
reelection bid and endorse his second-in-command against
Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump.
It also highlights the friendship and potentially historic link between
the nation's first Black president and the first woman, first Black woman and
first person of Asian descent to serve as vice president, who is now vying to
break those barriers at the presidential rank.
“We called to say Michelle and I couldn’t be prouder to endorse you and do
everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office,”
the former president told Harris, who is shown taking the call as she walks
backstage at an event, trailed by a Secret Service agent.
Said Michelle Obama, “I can’t have this phone call without saying to my
girl, Kamala, I am proud of you.
“This is going to be historic,” she added.
Harris, who has known the Obamas since before his election in 2008,
thanked them for their friendship and said she looks forward to “getting there,
being on the road” with them in the three-month blitz before Election Day on Nov. 5.
“We’re gonna have some fun with this too, aren’t we?” Harris said.
The Obamas are perhaps the last major party
figures to endorse Harris formally, a reflection of the former
president’s desire to remain, at least publicly, a party elder operating above
the fray. The Obamas remain prodigious
fundraising draws and popular surrogates at large campaign
events for Democratic candidates.
According to an Associated Press survey, Harris already has secured the
public support of a majority of the delegates to the
Democratic National Convention, which begins Aug. 19 in Chicago. The
Democratic National Committee expects to hold a virtual nominating vote that
would, by Aug. 7, make Harris and a yet-to-be-named running mate the official
Democratic ticket.
Biden endorsed Harris within an hour of announcing his decision Sunday to
end his campaign amid widespread concern about the 81-year-old president’s
ability to defeat Trump. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority
Leader Chuck Schumer, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, former House
Minority Whip Jim Clyburn, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton followed in the days after.
The Obamas, however, trod carefully as Harris secured the
delegate commitments, made the rounds among core Democratic
constituencies and raised more than $120 million. The public caution tracks how
the former president handled the weeks between Biden’s
debate debacle against Trump and the president’s eventual
decision to end his campaign: Barack Obama was a certain
presence in the party’s maneuvers, but he operated quietly.
Obama’s initial statement after Biden’s announcement did not mention
Harris. Instead, he spoke generically about coming up with a nominee to succeed
Biden: “I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be
able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges,” the former
president wrote.
Both Obamas campaigned separately for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in
2020, including large rallies on the closing weekends before Election Day. They
delivered key speeches at the Democrats’ convention in 2020, a virtual event
because of the coronavirus pandemic. The former president’s speech was
especially notable because he unveiled a full-throated attack on Trump as a
threat to democracy, an argument that endures as part of Harris’ campaign.