(Bloomberg) -- New York state Democrats are lining up behind Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s presidential nominee less than 24 hours after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race.
The state’s roughly 300 Democratic delegates, one of the biggest contingents, are set to support Harris at the convention in Chicago next month, party Chairman Jay Jacobs said Monday. Harris needs backing from about 2,000 delegates to officially receive the party’s nomination to run against former President Donald Trump.
“New York will be supporting Kamala Harris and we are putting together a Zoom sometime late today with our delegates, but every indication from phone calls we’ve been making and receiving from all across the state is overwhelming support, so we will formalize that later,” Jacobs said.
Several of the state’s most prominent elected Democrats, including Governor Kathy Hochul, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have already endorsed Harris, a factor that is helping persuade delegates to back the vice president’s bid, Jacobs said.
“The governor has been very active and clear that she would like Kamala Harris, and I think that’s made a very big impact on delegates as well,” Jacobs said.
Hochul, who vociferously and repeatedly defended Biden up until he withdrew from the race on Sunday, was among the first prominent Democratic elected officials to announce support for Harris’ candidacy, in a post on social media.
Adams is also backing the vice president.
“She is the voice that the party needs right now,” Adams, who endorsed Harris in the 2020 presidential primary, said in an interview on MSNBC Monday.
“We’re hemorrhaging African Americans,” the mayor said. “We’re hemorrhaging Hispanic voters. We’re hemorrhaging those working-class people who don’t realize the Democratic Party has a good product. We have to get a clear message on getting that product out there.”
Adams praised Harris’s background as a prosecutor.
“Having a presidential candidate that is going to be forceful with her prosecutorial background, with a law enforcement background, I think it’s the right message right now, because some of the reasons we’re losing many people in these communities, working-class communities, is because they don’t believe we are connecting with those real issues with them,” Adams said.
Ocasio-Cortez, who was among the most vocal backers of Biden’s candidacy — even after his disastrous debate performance last month — was also quick to endorse Harris on Sunday.
“Kamala Harris will be the next President of the United States. I pledge my full support to ensure her victory in November,” she said in a post on social media.
In other states, Arizona delegates are circulating a petition asking delegates to support Harris as the nominee, according to two people familiar with the effort. Delegates from New Hampshire and Tennessee have already committed their slate of delegates to the vice president.
--With assistance from Esme Fox and Akayla Gardner.
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