Vice President Kamala Harris received enough votes in the Democratic National Committee's virtual roll call to become the party's nominee for president, DNC chair Jaime Harrison said on a call on Friday.
Online voting kicked off Thursday and runs through Monday. By Friday, Harris received a majority of the pledged delegates to the convention.
Once the vote is formalized, Harris will officially become the first woman of color to lead a major political party's ticket, and could become the first woman, Black woman and person of South Asian descent to become president.
“I am honored to be the presumptive democratic nominee for president of the United States and I will tell you, the tireless work of our delegates, our state leaders, and our staff has been pivotal to making this moment possible," Harris said on the call.
"I will officially accept your nomination next week, once the virtual voting process is closed, but I’m happy to know we have enough delegates to secure the nomination," she said.
Harrison, who led the call, expressed pride that the party's delegates rallied around Harris so quickly and said he was looking forward to making it official at the party's convention in Chicago later this month.
"The fact that we can say today, just one day after we opened voting, that the vice president has crossed the majority threshold and will officially be our nominee next week, folks, that is simply outstanding," Harrison said, later adding that Democrats "will rally around Vice President Kamala Harris and demonstrate the strength of our party" at the convention.
The announcement comes hours after Harris' campaign said it raised an eye-popping $310 million in July, the biggest haul of the 2024 election cycle and more than double the amount raised by former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, over the same period.
In the days and weeks since President Joe Biden announced he was suspending his campaign and endorsing Harris to take his place at the top of the ticket, the vice president has received the backing of nearly every major Democratic Party power player, including former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, in addition to raising major sums of money.
She's also virtually erased Trump's leads in polling in both nationwide and state-level polls in must win battlegrounds, closing the gap with the Republican former president and, in some surveys, overtaking him.
Biden celebrated the news in a post on social media, calling his pick of Harris to serve as his running mate and eventual vice president "one of the best" he's ever made.
"Now that she will be our party’s nominee, I couldn’t be prouder," he added. "Let’s win this."
Typically parties officially select their nominees at their respective conventions — the Republicans held theirs earlier this month in Milwaukee, while Democrats are set to hold theirs in late August. However, Democrats are holding their nomination virtually this year over concerns about ballot access deadlines in some states.
In May, Democrats announced they would conduct a virtual roll call ahead of the party’s official in-person convention on Aug. 19-22 to ensure Biden would be on the ballot in Ohio. The move was in response to the state’s Aug. 7 deadline for candidates to qualify.
State lawmakers in Ohio have since passed a bill pushing back the deadline to facilitate the date of the Democratic National Convention. But Democrats have said it is necessary to move forward with the virtual roll call before the convention regardless, expressing concerns that they could be subject to legal challenges should they miss those deadlines.
Democrats are still planning to host a ceremonial roll call vote at the convention in Chicago later this month.