Kamala Harris Endorses Biden, Says He’s Lived With ‘Great Dignity’

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) before the second night of the second presidential Democratic candidates debate in Detroit, Mich., on July 31, 2019. Reuters/Lucas Jackson

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) has endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for president, three months after she dropped out of the race.

“We need a leader who really does care about the people and who can therefore unify the people. And I believe Joe can do that,” she said in a short video announcement posted on Twitter on March 8.

“I am supporting Joe because I believe that he is a man who has lived his life with great dignity. He is a public servant who has always worked for the best of who we are as a nation, and we need that right now.”

Biden has picked up several endorsements from former candidates as the Democratic field narrowed before and after Super Tuesday. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg dropped out and backed Biden before the March 3 battery of primaries, while former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg did so a day after.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) quit the race on March 5, but has yet to endorse a candidate. The obvious choice would be Biden’s main rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), since she ran on a further-left, progressive platform similar to that of Sanders. But that would likely jeopardize her chances of becoming Biden’s running mate, something Biden previously said he’d consider.

Biden has also floated Harris’s name in connection with the vice president post.

After Harris dropped out on Dec. 3, 2019, Biden said she’s “capable of being president or vice president or on the Supreme Court or attorney general.”

Harris struck a similarly flattering tone in her written endorsement, saying “there is no one better prepared than Joe.”

“With a lifetime in public service, Joe has a proven track record of getting things done,” she said.

Harris’s Downfall

Harris was among the top contenders in the race around June and July, but plummeted after fellow candidate Tulsi Gabbard criticized Harris’s record as a California prosecutor.

Gabbard is the only one left in the race besides Sanders and Biden. With only two pledged delegates, however, her path to victory is virtually impossible.

Harris suggested that her failure was at least partly to be blamed on voters, saying the “elephant in the room” was whether Americans were “ready for a woman and a woman of color to be president,” she told Axios.

Biden Ahead

Super Tuesday pushed Biden ahead, giving him a lead of nearly a hundred delegates, according to a tally by RealClearPolitics.

Sanders, however, still has a chance. A candidate needs 1,991 delegates to get the nomination on the first ballot during the Democratic National Convention in July. There are still more than 2,500 delegates to be pledged, with 352 about to be voted on March 10 and another 577 the week after.

Sanders picked up an endorsement of his own on March 8—from civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson.

“With the exception of Native Americans, African Americans are the people who are most behind, socially and economically, in the United States, and our needs are not moderate. A people far behind cannot catch up choosing the most moderate path,” Jackson said in a statement to news outlets, announcing the endorsement.

The Biden campaign didn’t reach out to him for endorsement, he said, while the Sanders campaign did.

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.