Harris clinches Democratic nomination as campaign pulls in $310mn

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Kamala Harris has officially won the Democratic presidential nomination, setting the stage for the general election battle against Donald Trump.

The Democratic party announced on Friday that Harris had secured the backing of a majority of delegates in a virtual vote taking place between now and next week to formally pick the party’s presidential nominee.

The 59-year-old vice-president is the first Black woman to lead a major party ticket in a US presidential election.

Harris’s ascent to the Democratic nomination comes as her campaign said it had raised $310mn in July, eclipsing the funds raised by Donald Trump’s campaign last month, in a new sign that Democratic donors are eagerly jumping in to finance the vice-president’s White House bid.

Trump’s campaign revealed on Thursday that it raised $139mn last month, as the former president became the subject of an assassination attempt, triggering an outpouring of sympathy for him, and the Republican party held its convention in Wisconsin.

The surge in fundraising for Harris marks the latest twist in a battle for campaign funds that has accompanied the race for the White House this year.

While Trump was lagging behind in fundraising early this year, he had caught up in recent months, tapping wealthy Republicans from Silicon Valley to Wall Street to support his bid for a second term, even though some had supported other candidates in the primary contest.

But the Democrats are bouncing back. The Harris campaign had already said it had raised $200mn during the first week since Joe Biden dropped out of the race in favour of the vice-president on July 21, and the figures released on Friday show the fundraising performance was even stronger.

While the Trump campaign said it had $327mn in cash on hand as of the end of July, the Harris campaign said it had $377mn in cash on hand. Combined with Biden’s fundraising efforts before he dropped out, the Democrats have now raised more than $1bn for their presidential campaign.

The Harris campaign will be hoping that it can further boost its fundraising after the vice-president chooses her running mate in the next few days and they start campaigning together, starting with a rally on Tuesday in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In addition, the Democratic convention in Chicago that begins on August 19 will also be a chance to fill her campaign coffers. According to the FiveThirtyEight.com national polling average, Harris is leading Trump by 1.5 percentage points, whereas Biden was trailing Trump when he dropped out of the race.

The Harris campaign this week launched its first television advertising campaign focused on crucial battleground states to provide a contrast with the mounting attacks on the vice-president and her record from Trump.

On Friday, a campaign official said Harris had enlisted David Plouffe and Stephanie Cutter, two political strategists and former political strategists to Barack Obama, as senior advisers to her White House bid.

The vice-president has decided to keep in place largely the same campaign team that had been behind Biden’s re-election bid, including Jen O’ Malley Dillon as campaign chair and Julie Chavez Rodriguez as campaign manager.

But a campaign official said some additions were being made by Harris. As well as Plouffe and Cutter, Brian Nelson, a US Treasury official responsible for sanctions policy and anti-terror financing policies, will be the senior adviser for policy.