Kamala Harris Has Had Her Eye on the Main Seat in the Oval Office for a Long Time

On July 21, 2024, amid rumors that it would happen and surprise that it actually did, President Joe Biden dropped out of the running for the 2024 presidential election. At the same time, he publicly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the new Democratic candidate. But Kamala Harris tried to run for president once before, so what happened?

Harris is the most obvious answer to who the Democratic party looks to as the lead candidate to go up against former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. And, thanks to her past with politics and her past in plenty of debates as a potential candidate for that main role herself, she has plenty of experience that's necessary to take her far.

At the end of 2019, after almost an entire year of campaigning to be the Democratic candidate for the 2020 election, Harris dropped out of the running. Her opponent at the time was Biden, who would later call upon her as his running mate. The rest is (mostly) history. However, now that Harris has another shot, that's arguably more possible than it was her first time around, you have to wonder what happened.

When she announced plans to drop out of the race, she opened up about details in a video that was later shared by The Guardian. In the video, Harris explained that her campaign no longer had "the resources to continue" in her journey to the Democratic primaries, let alone all the way to the election.

"I'm not a billionaire, I can't fund my own campaign," she said in the video, "And as the campaign has gone on, it has become harder and harder to raise the money we need to compete."

Although Biden endorsed Harris as his replacement nominee, it isn't as simple as allowing her to slide in his place and pick up where he left off. The official nominee will be chosen at the August 2024 Democratic National Convention, where more than 4,000 official voter delegates will decide who takes Biden's place as the nominee in the 2024 election.

It is also possible that other politicians will rise to the opportunity to throw their hats into the running for a possible vote as the new nominee. But the actual candidate for the Democratic party won't be official until the 2024 DNC in Chicago, Ill.