Kamala Harris’ first 48 hours as a U.S. presidential candidate were better than the first two days any other candidate has ever seen, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell claimed Monday.
“Kamala Harris has had the single best first day of any presidential candidate in history,” O’Donnell said. “And that was yesterday. She also just had the best second day in history of any presidential candidate.”
The vice president certainly got off to a strong start. President Joe Biden gave Harris his endorsement Sunday shortly after announcing his own withdrawal from the race, prompting a deluge of other endorsements from senior party figures. Many potential rivals for the Democratic nomination also followed suit, simultaneously boosting Harris’ support and whittling her competition.
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O’Donnell underscored the importance of how Harris quickly “snuffed out” a “dream that was being thrown around” by people hoping Biden would drop out: that the Democrats would have “what they would call an ‘exciting’ convention, where this could be a contested nomination.” O’Donnell said he would perceive such a situation not as “exciting” but rather as “chaos.”
Instead, support has quickly coalesced around Harris, with donors opening the financial floodgates. Her entry into the race spurred a record day of donations for the party, with $81 million raised in the 24 hours after her candidacy became official.
By Monday night, Harris appeared to have the nomination all but sewn up, securing verbal agreements with enough delegates to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month, according to an Associated Press survey.
Even though the 2,668 delegates who say they’re supporting Harris is well over the 1,976 needed for the nomination, nothing is official until delegates cast votes for their candidate of choice.
That hasn’t stopped Harris taking a victory lap, however.
“When I announced my campaign for President, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination. Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee,” Harris said in a statement posted on her campaign’s X account Monday night, adding: “I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.”
