Pelosi Endorses Harris for President After Pushing Biden to Exit
(Bloomberg) -- Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed Kamala Harris for president, joining a Democratic groundswell for the vice president’s bid to fill a vacancy she helped orchestrate.
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“We must unify and charge forward to resoundingly defeat Donald Trump and enthusiastically elect Kamala Harris as the next President of the United States,” Pelosi said in a statement Monday.
The House and Senate Democratic leaders, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, who have taken a back seat to Pelosi in the push to remove Biden from the ballot, plan to meet with Harris “in short order,” Jeffries said Monday afternoon.
Neither have yet endorsed her, but Jeffries told reporters Harris’s presidential candidacy has “excited” Democrats and the nation.
CNN reported the two Democratic leaders are expected to endorse Harris as soon as today.
Pelosi’s endorsement is the latest sign that Harris is on a path to lock up the Democratic nomination ahead of the Aug. 19 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Dick Durbin, the Senate’s second-ranking Democratic leader, endorsed Harris Monday morning, as did Jeffries’ lieutenants in the House.
Democratic governors and lawmakers who had been considered potential challengers — like popular governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Gavin Newsom of California and Andy Beshear of Kentucky — rapidly fell in line behind Harris after Biden endorsed her on Sunday.
Long History
Both Pelosi — the first and only woman to be US House Speaker — and Harris are from the California Bay Area and have known each other for years.
Pelosi worked behind the scenes to encourage and guide Democratic lawmakers as they pressed President Joe Biden to drop his reelection bid after the 81-year-old’s calamitous debate performance raised concerns about his mental acuity and ability to win another term.
Pelosi, 84, stepped down from the speaker’s post in 2022, saying she wanted to make way for a new generation of Democratic legislative leaders. Her role in the unprecedented effort to change the presumptive nominee just weeks before the party’s national convention reflected her continued prestige and influence among House Democrats.
Pelosi initially told colleagues she favored an open process to select a Biden successor atop the Democratic ticket.
Though both Pelosi and Harris rose up to elective office through San Francisco, they have maintained a distant political relationship, originating from different circles in the city’s clubby local Democratic politics.
Pelosi was an enthusiastic backer of now-California Governor Gavin Newsom early in his career, when he and Harris were sometimes viewed as rivals. Newsom also had been cited as a potential alternative Democratic presidential candidate.
Pelosi’s public support for Harris has been tepid at times. In a 2023 CNN interview, Pelosi deflected an opportunity from interviewer Anderson Cooper to say whether Harris is “the best woman for the job” and she responded that as long as Biden thinks Harris is the best woman for the job “that’s what matters.”
But, she added, “People shouldn’t underestimate what Kamala Harris brings to the table.”
--With assistance from Raeedah Wahid.
(Adds Jeffries, Schumer to meet with Harris in third paragraph)
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