WASHINGTON, D.C. — It may have been the most momentous fortnight in modern U.S. political history.
Barely a week after former President Donald Trump escaped a would-be assassin’s bullet by mere millimeters — a seemingly miraculous miss that galvanized Republicans on the eve of a GOP convention that felt like an early victory party for Trump, President Joe Biden upended the race for the White House on Sunday by announcing he was ending his re-election bid.
Twenty-seven minutes elapsed after Biden announced his decision on social media until he posted again to endorse Kamala Harris.
Suddenly, the vice president was a vessel for all the hopes of a Democratic Party that had spent the previous month in a state somewhere between mourning and civil war, after a disastrous debate performance forced Democrats to reckon with Biden’s advanced age. Harris had embodied her own, much-memed catchphrase: “What can be, unburdened by what has been.”
Kicking off her campaign on Monday, Harris said she intended “to go out and earn” her party’s nomination. But by the end of the day, nearly every Democrat in Congress had endorsed her, eager to finally turn their attention toward Trump, who seemed to be on a glide path to the White House just three years after he was impeached for inciting a riot at the Capitol.
On Thursday, delegates and alternates to the Democratic National Convention from Washington state voted 79-17 to endorse Harris, according to the state Democratic Party.
Washington’s Democratic senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, were quick to throw their support behind Harris. In an interview, Cantwell said Harris entering the race represents “a sea change” that has energized Democrats and let the party shift focus on their vision for the country.
“All of a sudden, people have hope for the future, for a change in our country,” Murray said in an interview. “Not dwelling on the past but really saying, ‘What does our future look like?’ and ‘I want to be a part of it.’ “
To illustrate just how dramatically the vibes have shifted, Murray recalled a moment in her 2010 race against Republican Dino Rossi when Biden, then vice president, came to Washington state to campaign for her — as he did, Murray said, for “virtually every Democratic member of the Senate and House.”
At a campaign rally, Biden told Murray she was going to win. When she asked him why he knew that, he pointed to the energized crowd and told her, “Because everybody’s shoulders-up. And when you’re shoulders-up, you win.”
With Harris’ entry into the race, Murray said, Democrats went from “shoulders-down” to “shoulders-up” overnight.
That same anecdote offers insight into a question that has troubled Biden-skeptical Democrats since the president announced his re-election bid in April 2023, despite polls earlier that year showing that most Democratic voters didn’t want him to run again: If Democrats in Congress truly believed that a second Trump presidency would threaten the very fabric of American democracy, why did so few of them call for a different candidate to face Trump?
Murray said there is a deep well of affection and appreciation among congressional Democrats for Biden, not only because he “literally has campaigned for everybody” but because of what he accomplished by ousting Trump in 2020 and helping enact major legislation to modernize the nation’s infrastructure, manufacturing and technology.
“The sense is we don’t want to punish him for that; we want to reward him for that,” she said. “And his candidacy and running for president again meant that.”
That didn’t stop Murray from being one of the first senior Democrats to publicly urge Biden to rethink the decision, saying in a statement July 8 that the president “must do more to demonstrate he can campaign strong enough to beat Donald Trump.”
“I have known and worked with Joe Biden since 1992 and I care deeply about him as a human being,” Murray said in the interview. “I so respect all he’s accomplished. But like everyone, I was watching him and thinking, that energy that this country needs, that they can grab onto, is just not in his depth right now.”
Cantwell said she and other Democrats in Congress were aware of concerns about Biden’s age when he announced his re-election bid, but they were more focused on passing legislation and the outlook for key congressional races.
“Did I think that there were people saying this? Yes, of course,” she said. “We were just continuing to move policy. And what would it have taken to have a broader, longer national conversation? I’m not sure. You can see how big an upheaval this was. I don’t know how you would have made that happen a year ago.”
As the longest-tenured Democrat in the Senate, first elected in 1992, Murray serves as Senate president pro tempore and served alongside Biden, who won his first Senate race in 1972, until he became vice president in 2009. His decision to leave the presidential race, she said, “says he cares about his country more than his personal interests.”
Murray contrasted that decision with Trump’s hold on the GOP, which has effectively purged any members who don’t show absolute deference to the former president. In an address from the Oval Office on Wednesday, Biden made that difference explicit.
“I revere this office, but I love my country more,” he said. “I draw strength and I find joy in working for the American people. But this sacred task of perfecting our union, it’s not about me. It’s about you, your families, your futures.”
Harris’s candidacy flipped the age dynamic that had defined the race between the 81-year-old Biden and Trump, who at age 78 is the oldest candidate nominated for president by a major party.
At 59 and having served as a prosecutor, attorney general and senator from California, Harris is far from a political neophyte. But Cantwell said the vice president’s relative youth helps send the message that Democrats are looking forward while Trump, whose “Make America Great Again” ethos is rooted in an idealized past, continues to falsely insist that he won the 2020 election.
“I feel like she was starting, at the very first speech she gave, to crystallize something that I don’t know that President Biden had been able to crystallize yet,” Cantwell said, adding that “sometimes the messenger can just be a really good visual message” to “talk about the future in a way that maybe President Biden couldn’t.”
Cantwell said she likes the message Harris has sent in her first few speeches as the party’s standard bearer, focusing on the economy and how the investments the Biden administration has shepherded through Congress is starting to help create high-paying jobs that don’t necessarily require college degrees.
At a rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday, Harris said her campaign is “about two different visions for our nation: one where we are focused on the future; the other focused on the past.”
“Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency,” Harris said. “But Donald Trump wants to take our country backward.”
Cantwell said Harris’ two years representing California in the Senate give her a perspective that could benefit Washington state, on issues including wildfires, drought, agriculture and technology. The vice president’s experience as a prosecutor, Cantwell said, gives her “a great skill set on these thorny, crazy issues related to Big Tech,” such as data privacy legislation that Cantwell and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Spokane, have worked for years to enact.
“As a Western senator, I’ve worked with Kamala,” Cantwell said. “I respect her. I think she’s a person for our time.”
In the Senate, Murray said, Harris showed herself to be a “solution-oriented person” who used her trademark laugh to connect with Democrats and Republicans alike.
“I just remember how many times she was on the other side of the aisle, talking to people, laughing with them, getting to know them personally and really learning the issues in depth and not being afraid to take things on,” Murray said. “She is someone who listens to people, has strong feelings about it, but incorporates other people’s thoughts because she cares so deeply about the future of our country.”
Murray said a Harris presidency could mean enacting bills to deal with the cost of child care and housing, the lack of paid family leave for workers and other “things that keep people from getting ahead.” Unlike Biden, who has largely avoided talking about abortion, Murray said Harris can put a spotlight on the fact that Trump-appointed justices enabled the Supreme Court to overturn longstanding protections for the procedure in 2022 — a political liability for Republicans.
In a speech at campaign headquarters in Delaware on Monday, her first as the party’s presumptive nominee for president, Harris started with an exchange with Biden, who was sick with COVID-19 and called into the event from his nearby vacation home.
“I knew you were still there,” Harris said when she heard the president’s voice on the phone. “You’re not going anywhere, Joe.”
“I’m watching you, kid,” Biden replied. “I love you.”
“I love you, Joe,” Harris said.
Then she tried out her new stump speech, drawing a contrast with Trump — but perhaps also with the man she hopes to succeed as president.
“Our campaign has always been about two different versions of what we see as the future of our country,” Harris said. “One focused on the future, the other focused on the past.”
