Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday pledged to fight for her party’s nomination and unite the Democratic party as she sought to rally her campaign team on her first full day as a 2024 presidential candidate.
“It is my intention to go out and earn this nomination and to win,” Harris said to cheers. “Though in the days and weeks ahead, I together with you, will do everything in my power to unite our Democratic Party, to unite our nation and to win this election.”
Harris on Monday also leaned into a storyline Democrats have sought to emphasize since Biden’s announcement on Sunday – contrasting her background as an attorney general and courtroom prosecutor with former President Donald Trump’s conviction in his hush money trial in New York in May.
“In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds,” she said. “Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain – so hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump's type.”
The vice president went on to make clear she didn’t want the campaign to just be about her against Trump, but a choice between two contrasing visions of America's future.
“Our campaign has always been about two different versions of what we see as the future of our country – two different visions for the future of our country," Harris said. “One focused on the future, the other focused on the past.”
Harris went on to note that building the middle class will be a “defining goal” of her presidency should she be elected. She listed passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act as well as addressing gun violence and reproductive freedom as priorities as well.
"It is this team here that is going to help this November to elect a majority of members of the United States Congress who agree that the government should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” Harris told the crowd. “And when Congress passes a law to restore reproductive freedoms, as president of the United States, I will sign it into law."
She also attacked the Project 2025 agenda, a far-right policy platform assembled by the right-wing Heritage Foundation that Trump has desperately tried to distance himself from, as something that "will weaken the middle class and bring us backward."
"We're not going back," she vowed.
Harris’ stop at her campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., was the culmination of a tumultuous three and a half weeks in American politics that saw President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects dwindle following last month’s presidential debate. It all came to a head on Sunday when Biden, in a stunning and unprecedented move, dropped his bid less than four months from November’s election, and threw his weight behind his vice president.
Biden – still at home in Delaware recovering from COVID-19 – called into Monday’s gathering to tell the team that his decision was the “right thing to do” and vow to stay “fully engaged” as Harris seeks the White House.
“The name has changed on the top of the ticket, but the mission hasn't changed at all," Biden said. "And by the way, I'm not going anywhere, I'm gonna be out there in the campaign with her, with Kamala, I'm going to be working like hell, both as a sitting president getting legislation passed as well as in the campaign."
Harris also used her remarks to once again praise the accomplishments and legacy of her boss, noting multiple times how much she loved the commander in chief.
“I’m watching you, kid, I love ya,” Biden replied during one exchange between the pair.