Barack Obama on Tuesday will use the Democratic convention in Chicago to anoint Kamala Harris the party’s future and as the first Black and South Asian woman presidential nominee, the heir to the movement he ignited in 2008.
Obama posted on social media that his Democratic National Convention address will lay out “what’s at stake” and why Harris and her running mate Tim Walz “should be our next president and vice president.”
The first Black person ever elected to the White House, Obama retains massive influence and is a gifted orator.
His convention appearance will take already giddy levels of enthusiasm in Chicago — where outgoing President Joe Biden delivered his own emotion-laden speech late Monday — to a new peak ahead of Harris’s symbolic acceptance of the nomination on Thursday.
With the party united and Harris polling strongly, Democrats are making clear they believe they can defeat Donald Trump, who had seemed set to regain power in November until Biden upended the race by dropping out and endorsing his vice president.
Comparisons are already being made by Democratic faithful to Obama’s historic 2008 campaign, where a tidal wave of enthusiasm carried him to the White House.
And convention delegate Ted Hiserodt, 56, said Obama will supercharge the Chicago crowd.
“He’s just very good at getting the energy level high,” he told AFP.
Harris — who was given an ecstatic reception in her cameo appearance before Biden took the stage on Monday — will hold a rally ahead of Obama’s speech in the Milwaukee basketball arena where Trump attended the Republican convention just a month ago.
The choice of the 18,000-seat arena appears to be a deliberate attempt to needle Trump, who has been clearly rattled by the fact that 59-year-old Harris, unlike Biden, is able to draw the kinds of crowds he has long attracted to his events.
Trying to pry media attention away from the Democratic convention, Trump is holding events all week and on Tuesday will speak in Michigan about what he says is Harris’s “anti-police” stance.
While allies have pleaded publicly for Trump to focus on policies and stop his barrage of personal insults against Harris, the Republican candidate told CBS News he would not change.
“I don’t care,” he said, returning to one of his favourite jibes — that Harris is not “very bright.”
“I don’t consider that an insult. That’s just a fact,” he said, adding that “a lot of people” think he, on the other hand, is “very bright.”
As the convention builds to Harris’s big speech Thursday, her husband Doug Emhoff will be one of the speakers on Tuesday. A successful lawyer, Emhoff would make history if Harris wins by becoming the nation’s first “first gentleman.”
But on Monday the floor belonged to Biden, who delivered a swan song after being forced to abandon his reelection bid amid deep concerns that at 81 he is too old and too frail to defeat Trump.
Biden has recast what might have been a humiliating moment into a narrative of sacrifice and passing on the torch to his younger understudy.
“It’s been the honour of my lifetime to serve as your president. I love the job, but I love my country more,” he said, wiping away a tear amid thunderous applause.
“I made a lot of mistakes in my career but I gave my best to you. For 50 years, like many of you, I gave my heart and soul to our nation,” he said before embracing Harris on stage.