DNC chairman says majority of delegates voted to give Harris the Democratic nomination

Vice President Kamala Harris won enough delegate votes to secure the Democratic presidential nomination, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison announced Friday, although the results are not yet official.

The DNC will not make an official announcement of the results until Monday night, when the virtual voting process for delegates to next month’s Democratic National Convention concludes.

“I will officially accept your nomination next week once the virtual voting process has concluded, but I am happy to know that we have enough delegates to secure the nomination,” Harris said in a conference call with supporters organized by her campaign, where Harrison made the announcement .

Harris would be the first Black woman and the first Indian American in American history to secure a major party’s presidential nomination.

Democratic delegates are holding an unusual pre-convention virtual vote to finalize their nomination before Ohio’s voting access deadline next week, which was set before the start of the party’s national convention in Chicago on Aug. 19. have selected their presidential candidate this way since May, long before Biden withdrew his re-election bid.

Harris is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination after President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid and endorsed her last month. Democrats created a new, lightning-fast nomination process that allowed other candidates to compete, but no major Democrats threw their hat into the ring and unknown candidates who filed nomination papers failed to garner enough support to qualify for the internal vote.

Virtual voting for the convention’s roughly 4,700 delegates began Thursday morning and is not scheduled to end until 6 p.m. ET. on Monday. Harris’ campaign says she received more than the 2,350 votes needed to secure the nomination a little later in the process. Delegates cannot change their votes once they have been cast.

Delegates will hold a “ceremonial and confirmatory” roll call vote in person at the convention in accordance with the party’s newly adopted rules, but the nomination will be made official once virtual voting ends next week.