Good morning. Last night, Kamala Harris reached the tally of Democratic delegates she needs to be confirmed as her party’s nominee for president. In a strikingly energetic speech to jubilant campaign staff at what has suddenly become her headquarters in Delaware, after Joe Biden called in by phone to support her, she said she planned to “unite our Democratic party, to unite our nation, and to win this election.” She added: “The baton is in our hands”.
As her party coalesced around her at dizzying speed, the Republicans were in the middle of an almighty pivot of their own. Having devoted vast resources to painting Joe Biden as too old and cognitively impaired to do the job, they must now make a plan to deal with a candidate who is almost two decades younger than their own and thoroughly capable of taking him on.
