By Mayank Chhaya-
Having secured enough delegates, Vice President Kamala Harris is for all practical purposes the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, a feat historic in itself irrespective of the eventual outcome of the elections.
She will be the first woman and that too biracial of shared Indian and Jamaican heritages to be the presidential nominee in America’s history.
The Democratic National Committee announced that Harris’s nomination will become official on Monday after a virtual roll call vote. She will become the nominee uncontested in a party that has enthusiastically rallied behind her.
Although her nomination has more or less been a fait accompli, the fact that she now officially has the number of delegates to be is remarkable. For the Indian American community, sections of which have been ambivalent about her sociocultural allegiance to their own, Harris’s presence at the top of the ticket is by any measure historic. Even though it comes against the backdrop of her rival, former President Donald Trump characteristically muddying the water over her ethnic background, the fact of her being a daughter of an Indian Tamilian immigrant mother and a Jamaican father ought to shut all the debate.
Harris will be formally anointed during the Democratic Party’s 4-day national convention in Chicago starting on August 19. There are expectations that she will announce her vice-presidential pick any day now, perhaps even by Monday when her nomination becomes official. It is reported that the law firm retained by her campaign has completed the vetting process of the prospective candidates with whom she will meet over the weekend.
“I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee,” Harris said.
“With the support of more than 50% of all delegates just one day into voting, Vice-President Harris has the overwhelming backing of the Democratic party and will lead us united in our mission to defeat Donald Trump in November,” the party char Jaime Harrison said in a statement. “But I want to be clear – there is still time for delegates to cast their ballots. I encourage every single delegate across the country to meet this moment and cast their ballot so that we head into our convention in Chicago with a show of force as a united Democratic party,” he said.
Harrison also said the speed at which the party had coalesced around Harris was “unprecedented”.
With that the Chicago convention has become much sought after with the Harris campaign offering two tickets in a lucky draw for donors.
