U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was moving swiftly on Monday to try to lock up the Democratic presidential nomination, the day after President Joe Biden, 81, abandoned his reelection bid in the face of growing opposition by his own party.

Harris, 59, was due to speak at the White House at 11:30 a.m. ET (1530 GMT) on Monday, her first public remarks since she entered the race on Sunday.

Campaign officials and allies have already made hundreds of calls on her behalf, urging delegates to next month's Democratic Party convention to join in nominating her for president in the Nov. 5 election against Republican Donald Trump.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, seen as a possible rival for the Democratic nomination after Biden's exit, endorsed Harris on Monday in a post on X, saying the vice president had her full support. Several other potential Democratic challengers, including California Governor Gavin Newsom and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, have backed Harris' bid.

Biden's departure was the latest shock to a White House race that included the near-assassination of former President Trump by a gunman during a campaign stop and the nomination of Trump's fellow hardliner, U.S. Senator J.D. Vance, as his running mate.

"My intention is to earn and win this nomination," Harris said in a statement. "I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party — and unite our nation — to defeat Donald Trump."

Harris, who is Black and Asian-American, would fashion an entirely new dynamic with Trump, 78, offering a vivid generational and cultural split-screen.

The Trump campaign has been preparing for her possible rise for weeks, sources told Reuters, and planned to try to tie her closely to Biden's policies on immigration and the economy.

Biden, the oldest person ever to have occupied the Oval Office, said he would remain in the presidency until his term ends on Jan. 20, 2025, while endorsing Harris to run in his place.

Biden's shaky June 27 debate performance against Trump led the president's fellow Democrats to urge him to end his run, but senior Republicans have demanded he resign from office, arguing that if he is not fit to campaign, he is not fit to govern.

Harris spent Sunday working the phones, dressed in a Howard University sweatshirt and eating pizza with anchovies as she spoke with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a potential vice presidential running mate, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Congressional Black Caucus chair Representative Steven Horsford, according to sources.

Biden's withdrawal leaves less than four months to wage a campaign.

Trump, whose false claims that his 2020 loss to Biden was the result of fraud inspired the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, on Monday questioned Democrats' right to change candidates.

"They stole the race from Biden after he won it in the primaries," Trump said on his Truth Social site.

Despite the early show of support for Harris, talk of an open convention when Democrats gather in Chicago on Aug. 19-22 was not totally silenced.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Barack Obama did not announce endorsements, although both praised Biden.

With Democrats wading into uncharted territory, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said the party would soon announce the next steps in its nomination process.

ABORTION RIGHTS LEADER

A former California attorney general and former U.S. senator, Harris ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 2020.

Biden won the nomination, picked Harris to be his vice president, and went on to beat Trump.

Harris has been outspoken on abortion rights, an issue that resonates with younger voters and more liberal Democrats.

She is expected to stick largely to Biden's foreign policy playbook on such issues as China, Iran and Ukraine, but could strike a tougher tone with Israel over the Gaza war if she tops the Democratic ticket and wins the November election.

Proponents argue she would energize those voters, consolidate Black support and bring sharp debating skills to prosecute the political case against the former president.

But some Democrats were concerned about a Harris candidacy, in part because of the weight of a long history of racial and gender discrimination in the United States, which has not elected a woman president in its nearly 250 year history.

Polling shows that Harris performs no better statistically than Biden had done against Trump.

In a head-to-head match-up, Harris and Trump were tied with 44% support each in a July 15-16 Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted immediately after the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump.

Trump led Biden 43% to 41% in that same poll, though the 2 percentage point difference was not meaningful considering the poll's 3-point margin of error.

Biden's campaign had $95 million on hand at the end of June, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission. Trump's campaign ended the month with $128 million. Campaign finance law experts disagree on how easily that money could be shifted to a Harris-led campaign.

Harris' campaign had raised $49.6 million since Biden's exit, a campaign spokesperson said on Monday.

More than 44,000 Black women and allies, including Representatives Maxine Waters, Jasmine Crockett and Joyce Beatty, joined a three-hour call Sunday evening in support of Harris's bid, raising more than $1.5 million for her presidential campaign, organizers told Reuters.

Biden has not been seen in public since testing positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday. He was isolating at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

"I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term," Biden wrote on X. He tentatively plans to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, if he has recovered.

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Harris on foreign policy: Her experience and where she stands

Now that she's running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, here's a closer look at where Vice President Kamala Harris stands on foreign policy issues and what her experience has been so far.

Israel

In the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Harris was initially a strong supporter of Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas -- knocking down a suggestion that the Biden administration might condition aid to the country in November, saying "we are not going to create any conditions on the support that we are giving Israel to defend itself."

But by December, Harris began wading deeper into Middle Eastern diplomacy during a trip to Dubai for a United Nations climate conference where she also met with leaders from the region; she took a more forceful tone with Israel than many other senior administration officials had done at the time -- declaring "too many innocent Palestinians have been killed" and saying the administration believes "Israel must do more to protect innocent civilians."

In a March address in Selma, Alabama, marking the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, Harris called out Israel again -- saying its government "must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid- -- no excuses" and calling on Israel to open border crossings and ensure humanitarian workers are not targeted.

In an interview published earlier this month, Harris said young Americans protesting the war in Gaza are "showing exactly what the human emotion should be" and that while she "absolutely rejects" some of their statements, she understands "the emotion behind it."

Harris doesn't have a longstanding relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as President Biden does, but she met with Israel's Benny Gantz at the White House while he was serving on the country's war cabinet in March and met with Israel's President Herzog earlier this year on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

Harris did not travel to Israel as vice president; she has made two trips to the Middle East as vice president -- visiting the UAE both times

Doug Emoff, her husband, is the first Jewish spouse at the White House:

Ukraine

Harris has been in lockstep with President Biden on Ukraine, and vowed to support its fight against Russia for "as long as it takes" earlier this year.

Intermittently, Harris has played a prominent role in the Biden administration's response to the war in Ukraine; ahead of Russia's invasion, she led the U.S. delegation to the high-stakes 2022 Munich Security Conference and last month, she represented the Biden administration at the Summit on Peace for Ukraine in Lucerne, Switzerland.

However, during both those engagements, Harris was backed up by other members of the administration with deeper experience in foreign policy, namely Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Munich and national security adviser Jake Sullivan in Lucerne.

Harris has met Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy six times but has never traveled to Ukraine while in office.

Russia

Harris has adamantly supported NATO and said the U.S. will never retreat from its obligations to the alliance: "Our commitment to build and sustain alliances has helped America become the most powerful and prosperous country in the world … to put all of that at risk would be foolish."

She also said the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a penal colony was a "further sign of Putin's brutality."

Harris has been sharply critical of former President Donald Trump's comments about NATO countries that don't meet the 2% defense spending benchmark, saying "the idea that the former president of the U.S. would say that he encourages a brutal dictator to invade our allies, and that the United States of America would simply stand by and watch -- no previous U.S. president, regardless of party, has bowed down to a Russian dictator before," and calling it "an example of something I just believe that the American people would never support."

China

Four of Harris' 17 trips abroad as vice president have been to East Asia and she has visited seven countries in the region as well as the DMZ between North and South Korea while in office; during these trips, she has emphasized curbing China's influence in the region and sought to promote a safe and secure Indo-Pacific.

Harris has represented the U.S. during gatherings of ASEAN and APEC, two of the most important multinational organizations in the region and met with met with dozens of Asian leaders, including the heads of all five U.S. treaty allies in the region (Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and Thailand); Harris has also met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and briefly met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in September in Jakarta.

As vice president, Harris has been critical of China's actions in the South China Sea, accusing the country of "bullying."

She has also said while the U.S. "does not invite conflict" with China, "we absolutely are prepared to and engaged in what is necessary to compete."

Central America

During the first months of her vice presidency, Harris was assigned with addressing the root causes of irregular migration through the U.S.-Mexico border.

Administration and campaign officials say Republicans have wrongly tried to brand her as Biden's "border czar."

While Harris has courted investments from the private sector to support communities in Central America, she has been criticized for what some see as a lack of engagement; as VP, she has traveled to the region only twice -- spending three days on a trip to Guatemala and Mexico in 2021 and spending a day in Honduras in 2022.

She visited the border city of El Paso, Texas, in June 2021.

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What to know about Kamala Harris

As President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he will not seek reelection in November against former President Donald Trump, he shared his “full support and endorsement” for his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, as the Democratic candidate.

As Biden’s performance in the first presidential debate led to a host of Democrats calling for him to be replaced as the party’s official candidate, one of the most popular suggestions for a replacement has been Harris.

While she is not the formal Democratic nominee for president yet, Harris said in a statement Sunday that she intends “to earn and win [the party’s] nomination.”

Who is Kamala Harris?

Harris currently serves as the Vice President of the United States. She is the first woman, first Black person, and first Asian American person to hold this position.

Harris graduated from Howard University before attending law school at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law.

She was admitted to the California State Bar in 1990 and then served as a deputy and assistant district attorney before being elected District Attorney of San Francisco.

Kamala Harris road to the White House

Harris was elected the District Attorney of San Francisco in 2004 and served until 2011.  As district attorney, Harris prioritized cracking down on student truancy and creating a reentry program for low-level drug offenders.

In 2011, Harris was elected the California Attorney General. In this role, she declined to defend Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage.

In 2017, Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate. In this position, she advocated for healthcare reform, gun control and a path to citizenship for immigrants.

In 2020, Biden announced that Harris would be his running mate in the presidential election.

Kamala Harris and Joe Biden’s relationship

After the first presidential debate, many expressed that Harris should replace Biden as the Democratic party’s nominee. Major reasons include that she is much younger than him and has worked closely with him.

Before Biden announced Harris as his vice president pick during the 2020 election, the two had clashed over Biden’s past policies. Harris had called out his past collaborations with segregationist senators and his opposition to mandated bussing to promote school desegregation in the 1970s.

However, Biden and Harris have bonded because of her closeness with his late son, Beau Biden. The president’s son served as the attorney general of Delaware during Harris’s tenure as California attorney general, and the pair worked closely together.

Biden said he considered his son, who died of brain cancer in 2015, when choosing Harris as his running mate.

At an event this weekend in Las Vegas, Nevada, she continued to support Biden while attacking former President Donald Trump.

“In a real leader, character matters more than style, and Donald Trump simply does not have the character to be president of the United States,” Harris said.

Kamala Harris’s political views

Harris has long supported gun control, equality for women and the LGBTQ community, and voting rights, but was criticized in her tenure as California’s attorney general for not investigating shootings by police.

Harris has called for policies such as the decriminalization of marijuana and cutting defense spending. She also released a climate equity plan with NY Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that would consider the impact of new climate policies on low-income communities.

Harris has previously referred to herself as a “progressive prosecutor,” and was endorsed by the police union when she was elected San Francisco district attorney. In this election, she beat her former boss, Terence Hallinan, who was viewed as one of the most progressive district attorneys in the nation.

During the Biden-Harris administration’s tenure, Harris has worked to fight for abortion rights and gun control. The administration has also approved billions of dollars in student debt relief.

Kamala Harris’s net worth

According to reports, a significant part of Harris’s earnings came from publishing three books, including a memoir. According to her 2015 Congressional finance disclosure, her net worth was roughly $3.31 million. Her annual salary as vice president is reported to be $235,100.

However, the vast majority of her net worth is attributable to her marriage to attorney Doug Emhoff in 2014. The couple have reported combined assets worth about $6 million.

Kamala Harris controversies

Harris has one of the lowest approval ratings of any vice president. According to a 538 poll, as of mid-July, almost 50% of Americans disapprove of Harris as vice president, and only 38% approve of her.

Her term has seen lots of turnover in her office, including the resignation of her chief of staff and deputy chief of staff. Politico reported an anonymous source said that they, along with the press secretary and communications director, resigned because they “often feel mistreated.”

During her 2020 presidential campaign, Harris faced criticism about her tenure as California’s attorney general, especially when she did not step in to investigate shootings by police in San Francisco following the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

Kamala Harris‘s personal life

Harris married lawyer Douglas Emhoff in 2014 and became the stepmother of his two children, Ella and Cole. She is 59 years old and grew up in California.

Harris graduated from Howard University before attending law school at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law.

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