BY BILL BARROW
ATLANTA (AP) — Former President Barack Obama and former
first lady Michelle Obama have endorsed Kamala Harris in her White House bid,
giving the vice president the expected but still crucial backing of the
nation’s two most popular Democrats.
The endorsement, announced Friday morning in a video showing
Harris accepting a joint phone call from the former first couple, comes as
Harris continues to build momentum as the party’s likely nominee after
President Joe Biden’s decision to end his reelection bid and endorse his
second-in-command against Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump.
It also highlights the friendship and potentially historic
link between the nation’s first Black president and the first woman, first
Black woman and first person of Asian descent to serve as vice president, who
is now vying to break those same barriers at the presidential rank.
“We called to say Michelle and I couldn’t be prouder to
endorse you and do everything we can to get you through this election and into
the Oval Office,” the former president told Harris, who is shown taking the
call as she walks backstage at an event, trailed by a Secret Service agent.
Said Michelle Obama, “I can’t have this phone call without
saying to my girl, Kamala, I am proud of you.
“This is going to be historic,” she added.
Harris, who has known the Obamas since before his election
in 2008, thanked them for their friendship and said she looks forward to
“getting there, being on the road” with them in the three-month blitz before
Election Day on Nov. 5.
“We’re gonna have some fun with this too, aren’t we?” Harris
said.
The Obamas are perhaps the last major party figures to
endorse Harris formally — a reflection of the former president’s desire to
remain, at least publicly, a party elder operating above the fray. The Obamas
remain prodigious fundraising draws and popular surrogates at large campaign
events for Democratic candidates.
According to an Associated Press survey, Harris already has
secured the public support of a majority of delegates to the Democratic
National Convention, which begins Aug. 19 in
Biden endorsed Harris within an hour of announcing his
decision last Sunday to end his campaign amid widespread concern about the
81-year-old president’s ability to defeat Trump. Former House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Democratic Leader Hakeem
Jeffries, House Minority Whip Jim Clyburn, former President Bill Clinton and
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed in the days after.
The Obamas, however, trod carefully as Harris secured the
delegate commitments, made the rounds among core Democratic constituencies and
raised more than $120 million. The public caution tracks how the former
president handled the weeks between Biden’s debate debacle against Trump and
the president’s eventual decision to end his campaign: Obama was a certain
presence in the party’s maneuvers but he operated quietly.
Barack Obama’s initial statement after Biden’s announcement
did not mention Harris. Instead, he spoke generically about coming up with a
nominee to succeed Biden: “I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of
our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee
emerges,” the former president wrote.
Both Obamas campaigned separately for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, including large rallies on the closing weekends before Election Day. They delivered key speeches at the Democrats’ convention in 2020, a virtual event because of the coronavirus pandemic. The former president’s speech was especially notable because he unveiled a full-throated attack on Trump as a threat to democracy, an argument that endures as part of Harris’ campaign.