Pressure was mounting on the 81-year-old Biden to quit the race. “We need to have his back,” Emhoff told roughly 75 attendees.
Two days later, that new campaign office belonged to his wife.
On Sunday, Biden announced on social media that he was no longer seeking reelection. Then he threw his weight behind his running mate, endorsing Harris as his preferred Democratic nominee for president. Most of the party’s major players soon followed suit — including several Democratic governors bandied about as potential Biden replacements. Though the official decision will be made at the party’s convention in mid-August, no serious challenger to Harris has stepped forward.
And already, Biden’s robust campaign infrastructure — in Arizona and nationwide — has become hers. The president’s campaign finances, operations and staff quickly have been transitioning to a Harris-led ticket.
Harris’ new campaign headquarters are the same as Biden’s, located in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, and her fundraising emails are being sent from a contact.joebiden.com domain name. In Arizona, the Biden-Harris campaign had built a strong network of offices, campaign staff and organizers. Most, if not all of them, are now part of the Harris presidential campaign.
That makes sense, since she’s the only one who can use it. Speaking on the podcast The Daily, New York Times reporter Peter Baker noted that Harris “has legal claim to the apparatus (of the campaign) and the war chest” because her name has been tied to the funding and operations of the Biden-Harris campaign. “It looks like the Biden people are telling friends and allies and staff that they are planning on being her team now, as well,” Baker said.
Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, speaks at the opening of a Joe Biden campaign office in Phoenix on Friday. Two days later, the office belonged to his wife's campaign.
Morgan Fischer
Traded to Team Kamala
On social media, several notable staffers announced the change. That includes Juan Hinojos Zapien, who was Biden’s Arizona deputy political director, and Jacques Petit and Delaney Corcoran, both of whom were part of the communications team for the Biden-Harris campaign. Now “@KamalaHarris” has replaced “@JoeBiden” in their bios. All three also retweeted posts from the newly rebranded “@KamalaHQ,” which previously was “@BidenHQ.” Hinojos Zapien and Corcoran both posted a photo of Harris arriving at the campaign headquarters, while Petit posted a welcoming to new followers of the account.The staffers won’t have to worry about getting paid, either. According to the Harris campaign, it raised $81 million in the first 24 hours following Biden’s announcement. The Biden campaign also submitted Federal Election Commission paperwork to rename itself “Harris for President,” giving Harris access to $95 million in Biden’s campaign coffers.
Just as quickly as the campaign infrastructure has switched to a new candidate, so have many of Arizona’s top Democratic officials. That includes Sen. Mark Kelly, who has been floated as a possible vice president candidate. Others publicly backing Harris include Gov. Katie Hobbs, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, Senate candidate and current Rep. Ruben Gallego and Reps. Greg Stanton and Raul Grijalva, both of whom called on Biden to step down. The Arizona Democratic Party also has endorsed Harris.
In his social media endorsement of Harris, Kelly called her “the right person to defeat Donald Trump and lead our country into the future,” and said he and his wife, former Arizona U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, would “do everything we can to elect her President of the United States.”
Harris’ coronation as the Democratic nominee is not set in stone. She theoretically could face a challenger during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which is set to run Aug. 19-22. However, several potential challengers to Harris — including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and California Gov. Gavin Newsom — have said they won’t run for the White House and endorsed her.
With the general election just more than 100 days away, that’s a lot of change for the Democratic party late in the game. The last incumbent president to announce he wouldn’t be seeking reelection was Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. But even then, he did it in March, not July.
Notably, Johnson’s Democratic successor — Hubert Humphrey, like Harris the incumbent vice president — lost in the general election. With the specter of another Donald Trump presidency on the line, Harris and the Democrats hope that particular history won’t repeat itself.
