Vice President Harris speaking at an event. Image: White House website
Vice President Harris speaking at an event. Image: White House website
It took more than three weeks for dissension to fracture the Democratic Party and less than 24 hours to bring it back together behind Harris.
Republished with permission from Lucian K. Truscott IV
Take a bow, Democrats. With practically every headline about the Democratic Party for the past three weeks featuring words like “disarray” and “chaos” and “turmoil,” Joe Biden’s announcement yesterday has brought the party together in an almost unimaginable way. CNBC is reporting that the party has raised more than $100 million in less than 24 hours. Poll results are not yet in, but I think we can guess what they will reflect—an upswing in support across the board, from races for county commissioners all the way to the presidential contest.
Support for Kamala Harris began surging last night and has continued apace. Nancy Pelosi announced her support this afternoon. Politico, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal are reporting that the Vice President is scheduled to sit down with Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer “soon” or “shortly.” Prior to the upcoming meeting, the two released this statement: “Vice President Kamala Harris is off to a great start with her promise to pursue the presidential nomination in a manner consistent with the grass roots and transparent process set forth by the Democratic National Committee. She is rapidly picking up support from grass roots delegates from one end of the country to the other. We look forward to meeting in person with Vice President Harris shortly as we collectively work to unify the Democratic Party and the country.”
If that sounds like typical Democratic Party equivocation by its leaders, it is, and I guess we’ll have to wait until they have had their meeting with Harris to see how things shake out. But this is such a fast-breaking story, it’s wearing out my keyboard. CNN just reported at 5:30, “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the top-ranking Democrats in each chamber, were set to endorse Harris soon, according to multiple sources familiar with the decision.” So the deal seems already to be done.
Meanwhile Harris has picked up the endorsements of 40 Democratic Senators and more than 100 members of the House today. The Democratic governors of several battleground states, including Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Beshear of Kentucky, Evers of Wisconsin, Walz of Minnesota (which has recently entered the tossup column), and Witmer of Michigan, have endorsed Harris.
CNN is reporting that the delegations of Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Maryland, Kentucky, Florida and Pennsylvania have announced that their delegates are backing Harris. As of early this afternoon, Harris has received first ballot commitments of 1,315 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. She needs just over 650 more delegates to win the nomination, but Harris has received the support of all 50 state Democratic Party chairs, and they are said to be making around the clock calls to their state delegations to lock in support for Harris. Some party experts are saying she could have all 4,000 delegates committed to her by tomorrow or Wednesday.
Well have to wait and see, but you can see how it’s going. In contrast to the last time an incumbent Democrat in the White House prematurely announced the end of his candidacy—Lyndon Johnson in 1968—the party is coming together rather than splintering as it did in that dark summer and fall. The issue then was the war in Vietnam, which fractured the party.
Johnson made a calculation in late March of that year that he could not lead his party to victory against Nixon. Robert F. Kennedy announced his candidacy after Eugene McCarthy narrowly lost to Johnson in New Hampshire. Liberal Democrats split their support between McCarthy and Kennedy in the primaries that followed, with Humphrey not entering the primaries in a strategy to focus on the support of non-primary state delegates at the convention.
After Kennedy was assassinated in June, Johnson took Humphrey’s side in the contest for the nomination and rallied the support of state party bosses and labor unions to support Humphrey at the convention. Chaos ensued not only on the floor of the convention but in the streets of Chicago, where what was later termed a “police riot” turned the streets into a war zone. Humphrey was nominated, but the party remained split, and an unpopular Nixon won the election in November.
Clearly, 2024 is not 1968, and Kamala Harris is not Hubert Humphrey, and even though Democrats will meet once again in Chicago in the blistering heat of August, there will not be riots and the party will unite behind Kamala Harris and the campaign will begin in earnest, as it usually does after the conventions of both parties are over.
The issue that is fracturing the country this year is not a war, but a man, Donald Trump. And Democrats, bless them, rather than being divided are unified in opposition to Trump and everything he stands for. Now there will be just one man in his eighth decade in the race, Donald Trump. Vice President Harris has already shown an ability to weave attacks on Project 2025 into her attacks on Donald Trump, and we will no doubt see her using Trump’s age and discombobulated syntax and disjointed verbiage against him, in addition to pointing out Trump’s obvious affection for dictators like Putin and Orban and refusal to back NATO in support of Ukraine’s defensive war against Russia’s invasion.
The contrast between the candidates is now more stark than ever. Our candidate is on the right side of racial and LGBTQ issues, the right side of the abortion question, the right side of America’s role in international affairs, the right side of everything, when you think about it. The party is solidifying behind her. It took more than three weeks for dissension to fracture the party and less than 24 hours to bring us back together. Donald Trump today complained that he had wasted all his effort opposing Biden and asked on his failing Truth Social platform, “Shouldn’t the Republican Party be reimbursed for fraud” because of the Democrats’ support of Biden.
He certainly knows what he’s talking about when it comes to fraud, and we know what we’re talking about when it comes to winning with Kamala Harris.
Finally, doesn’t it feel good to be a Democrat?
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He has covered stories such as Watergate, the Stonewall riots and wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels and several unsuccessful motion pictures. He has three children, lives in rural Pennsylvania and spends his time Worrying About the State of Our Nation and madly scribbling in a so-far fruitless attempt to Make Things Better.
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