Former president Barack Obama and Michelle Obama offered their endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president in a video released Friday morning.
The Harris campaign shared a 55-second clip of Harris taking a phone call from the Obamas.
″I can’t have this phone call without saying to my girl Kamala: I am proud of you,” Michelle Obama said. “This is going to be historic.”
Former president Obama added, “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.”
It means so much to have your endorsements, @MichelleObama and @BarackObama.
Let’s get to work. pic.twitter.com/rAuTyIlCai
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 26, 2024
Harris replied: “Thank you both. It means so much. And, we’re going to have some fun with this, too, aren’t we?”
On the call Obama told Harris Democrats will be the “underdogs” in November but he said, “We’re absolutely confident that you’re going to be able to make it happen.”
The endorsement comes days after Harris received key endorsements from other senior Democrats. Moments after President Biden announced he was ending his reelection bid on Sunday, he endorsed the vice president is a separate statement. Others had quickly lined up behind Harris, including former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton.
That Obama had held out in endorsing Harris led to questions over whether he planned to do so, or whether he planned to support another candidate.
Earlier this week, Obama shared a statement on Medium shortly after Biden exited the race, but did not mention Harris in the statement.
“Joe Biden has been one of America’s most consequential presidents, as well as a dear friend and partner to me,” Obama wrote of his former vice president.
What could’ve been a contested nomination fight quickly became a coronation for Harris, who immediately secured support from Democratic delegates, party leaders, and would-be rivals in the wake of Biden’s decision to bow out.
In a little over 24 hours after Biden dropped out, Harris had received pledges from enough Democratic delegates to become the party’s nominee. And the campaign says it pulled in more than $100 million in donations between Sunday afternoon and Monday evening.
The party is taking a huge gamble in uniting behind Harris, an extremely unpopular vice president who spent the entire 2020 presidential primary tacking to the left.
When Harris ran her first bid for president in 2020, her poor polling in the crowded Democratic primary prompted her to end her campaign before the Iowa caucuses. Fast forward to 2024: Trump leads Harris by an average of 1.5 percentage points, according to a Washington Post analysis of surveys conducted by eleven different pollsters before Biden officially dropped out of the race. Biden, by comparison, was 1.9 percentage points behind Trump. Yet ahead of Biden’s debate disaster, he typically outperformed Harris in match-ups against Trump.