Chicago, USA (AFP) – Barack Obama told fellow Democrats in Chicago Tuesday that "the torch has been passed" to Kamala Harris and that the United States was ready for her to become president.
Former president Obama was greeted with rapturous applause and cheers at the packed arena hosting the party's nominating convention, then said Vice President Harris would fight for Americans.
He called her November poll rival Donald Trump "dangerous."
"Kamala Harris is ready for the job. This is a person who has spent her life fighting for people who need a voice," he said.
Obama called Harris "someone who sees you and hears you and will get up every single day and fight for you."
"Yes she can," Obama said of Harris, prompting the boisterous crowd to repeatedly chant the phrase, recalling his own "Yes we can" campaign slogan from 2008.
Before his stardust performance, his wife and former US first lady Michelle Obama had told convention goers "something magically wonderful is in the air."
"It's the contagious power of hope," she said, calling Harris "my girl" and saying that hope – another rallying cry of her husband's successful 2008 campaign – "is making a comeback."
'Joy and toughness'
Obama's speech amped up the already buoyant mood in Chicago where President Joe Biden delivered his own emotional speech late Monday less than a month after ending his reelection bid.
"They shared with us how they felt, and we were able to resonate with them," said Mae Beale who wore a hat in the colours of Maryland, her home state.
"They were so real... I could identify with everything they were saying."
In deeply personal remarks shifting the focus onto Harris's qualities, her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, told the convention "she is ready."
"She brings both joy and toughness to this task," he said to cheers.
"At this moment in our nation's history, she is exactly the right president."
With the party united and Harris polling strongly, Democrats are making clear they believe they can defeat Trump.
The Republican nominee had seemed set to regain power in November's election until Biden upended the race by dropping out and endorsing his vice president.
Comparisons are already being made by Democratic faithful to Obama's historic 2008 campaign, where a tidal wave of enthusiasm carried him to the White House.
Bullish delegates symbolically nominated Harris as their candidate in a boisterous roll call, following a paper exercise to confirm her as their standard bearer earlier this month.
"Thank you... see you in two days, Chicago," she said to delegates via video link from her event in Milwaukee.
Trump's attacks
Harris, who was received rapturously in America's third largest city at her debut appearance before Biden spoke, travelled to Milwaukee Tuesday for an event at the basketball arena where Donald Trump attended the Republican National Convention just a month ago.
The choice of the 18,000-seat arena will rile Trump, who has been rattled that 59-year-old Harris, unlike Biden, is able to draw the kinds of crowds the Republican has long attracted to his events.
Addressing both crowds simultaneously highlighted that she had filled the DNC and RNC venues.
Trying to pry media attention away from the Democratic convention, Trump is holding events all week, and on Tuesday he spoke about what he says is Harris's "anti-police" stance.
At an event in Howell, in the battleground state of Michigan, he attacked what he called "the Kamala crime wave."
"You can't walk across the street to get a loaf of bread – you get shot," he said flanked by police officers and their cars, falsely claiming there has been a 43 percent increase in violent crime.
While allies have pleaded publicly for Trump to focus on policies and stop his barrage of personal insults against Harris, he has not stopped.
(AFP)
