WASHINGTON: Former US President Barack Obama on Friday endorsed fellow Democrat Kamala Harris for the White House, giving a major boost to her campaign to defeat Donald Trump in the November presidential election.
The nation's first female vice president will look to make history again in November after President Joe Biden abruptly announced he would not seek reelection following weeks of mounting pressure on him to step down.
The endorsements from Barack and Michelle Obama will add to the growing momentum of Harris' campaign, which polls show has already narrowed the gap that existed between Trump and Biden.
“Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend Kamala Harris. We told her that we think she will be a fantastic president of the United States and that she has our full support,” Obama said on social media platform X.
“At this critical moment for our country, we are going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in November. We hope you will join us.”
The influential former leader and first black US president was one of the latest Democratic heavyweights to offer his support, with Harris having already received Biden's endorsement on Sunday.
Harris, 59, jumped into the race after weeks of turmoil over Biden, 81, who dropped out after a dismal debate performance against Trump, accelerating concerns about his mental fitness and persistently low poll numbers.
He has since launched a harsh attack on Trump and his “extremist” Republicans.
On Thursday, Harris addressed the American Federation of Teachers — the first union to endorse her candidacy — warning that the country was witnessing an “all-out assault” by Trump Republicans on “hard-won, hard-fought freedoms.”
Democratic Party delegates have quickly rallied en masse behind Harris, and the momentum behind her campaign appears to have taken Trump by surprise.
The bombastic Republican has refused to schedule a debate with Harris, saying Thursday night that it would be “inappropriate” until she was officially named the Democratic nominee.
Harris, a former top California prosecutor, rebuked her opponent on X, saying, “What happened to 'anytime, anywhere'?”
She had previously said of a possible Sept. 10 showdown: “I'm ready. So let's go.”
Union support
Teachers union members applauded Harris when she addressed them in Texas.
“While you teach students about democracy and representative government, extremists attack the sacred freedom to vote. While you try to create safe and welcoming places where our children can learn, extremists attack our freedom to live safe from gun violence,” he said.
“They have the nerve to tell teachers to carry a gun in the classroom while refusing to pass common sense gun safety laws.”
Harris tied the event to a key campaign message about refusing to return to Trump's America, praising her audience as “visionaries” who look to the future.
And he contrasted Democratic efforts to cancel student debt and their vision for investing in public schools and universities with Trump's promise to dismantle the Department of Education and cut spending in half.
The speech came amid increasingly extreme rhetoric from Trump, who on Wednesday called her a “radical left-wing lunatic” and falsely claimed she favored the “execution” of newborn babies.
Trump, who at 78 is the oldest presidential candidate in U.S. history, has vowed he will “not give a dime” of federal funding to schools that mandate vaccinations. All public schools in the U.S. have such mandates.
Trump and Harris were statistically tied in a new New York Times/Siena College poll that showed he was narrowing the gap after the survey found Biden trailing by six points in early July.
But one of the most urgent tasks she faces in the near term is to forge her own political identity before Trump can define her as inseparable from the unpopular Biden.
And she has quickly begun spending some of the more than $100 million she has raised in recent days to tell her personal story and counter Republican characterizations of her as a liberal out of touch with reality.
