Haywood Dem delegate explains Harris pick
The Democratic National Convention will take place in Chicago in less than a month, from Aug. 19 through Aug. 22.
DNC photo
News of President Joe Biden’s exit from the 2024 presidential race may have shocked some observers, but North Carolina’s Democratic delegates appear fired up and ready to get behind Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s new nominee.
“I have not seen the members of my party so energetic in a while,” said Jesse Ross, one of five 11th Congressional District delegates to the Democratic National Convention next month in Chicago.
Ross grew up in Waynesville, lives in Haywood County and works in Canton. He currently serves as president of the Young Democrats of Haywood County, and as the Western Regional Vice President for the Young Democrats of North Carolina.
On July 21, Ross was driving home from the North Carolina Democratic Party’s unity dinner in Raleigh the previous night, which had featured speakers including California representatives Nancy Pelosi and Ro Khanna, as well as N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein, the party’s nominee for governor in 2024. Ross had just pulled into a rest area when messages began to flash across his phone that Biden had declined to seek his party’s nomination for the presidency.
Biden’s move caps off a disastrous month for the president, during which he was panned for a poor debate performance against former President Donald Trump on June 27 and continued to make a series of very public missteps that led many to question his ability to lead. Speculation about Biden’s intentions had reached a crescendo over the preceding weeks, and prominent members of his own party called on him to drop out of the race.
The first news of Biden’s decision came with a post on his X account at 1:46 p.m. on July 21.
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“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote.
“I guess the feeling was, ‘Alright, at least now we know,'” Ross said.
Around 30 minutes later, Biden expressed his support for and endorsement of Harris and followed that up with a fundraising appeal.
The North Carolina Democratic Party called an emergency meeting at 7 p.m. that evening strictly for delegates like Ross. The tone of the call, Ross said, was one of respect for the president.
“One reason people were supporting him for as long as they did is because that they knew he would get the work done and just the sheer political capital that came from delivering on most of his promises,” Ross said. “People respect him and felt honored in a lot of ways that he was there to represent us for so long.”
No one told anyone who to endorse, Ross said; however, the overwhelming majority of messages and calls he’d received in the interim indicated strong support for Harris, especially after Biden’s endorsement.
“That energy really carried over into the meeting, and people are excited,” Ross said. “People are naturally excited in a way that they haven't been to last few months.”
Fundraising stats back up that assertion. ActBlue, the Democrats’ online fundraising platform, said that as of 9 p.m. on July 21, supporters had raised $46.7 million for the Harris campaign in the seven hours since Biden made his announcement.
By 8:30 p.m., North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton announced that all of North Carolina’s 168 delegates had endorsed Harris, joining Tennessee and South Carolina delegations and giving Harris 531 out of the 1,986 delegates she’ll need to win the nomination in Chicago next month.
Rumors have been circulating that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and/or West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, currently registered as an independent, may attempt to seek the nomination. However, Monday morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Manchin shot down the rumors that he may harbor that ambition and said he will retire from politics.
Clayton told the Raleigh News & Observer’s Danielle Battaglia that delegates had also expressed support for Harris selecting North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper as her running mate. As of press time on July 22, Harris had not publicly expressed a preference for a vice presidential pick, although Cooper’s been mentioned as a short-list candidate along with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, among others.
Biden’s departure from the race does, however, raise a valid question — if he doesn’t think he can serve for the next four years, what makes him think he can serve for the next four months?
“What we do know, especially in the Democratic Party, is that he has been doing a good job consistently,” Ross said. “I'm thinking about when he joined the picket line [of a United Auto Workers strike in Michigan in 2023], getting the CHIPS Act passed to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, student loan forgiveness — there's just no reason for me to think that can't continue.”
