Kamala Harris officially selected as Democratic candidate

US Vice President Kamala Harris has crossed the threshold to win the Democratic presidential nomination in a vote of party delegates.

Speaking by phone, Ms Harris said she was “honoured to be nominated” as the virtual roll call continued ahead of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago later this month.

Ms. Harris is the first black woman and the first South Asian woman to become the White House nominee for a major US political party.

If she defeats Republican nominee Donald Trump in November, she will become the first female president of the United States.

She ran unopposed in the virtual roll call after President Joe Biden resigned last month and quickly endorsed her. Several potential rivals followed his lead.

On Friday afternoon, Ms. Harris officially became the nominee after winning the support of 2,350 delegates, the threshold needed to win the nomination.

“We believe in the promise of America and that is what this campaign is about,” she said in a brief phone call as she crossed the benchmark.

“We’re here, we’re on the road and it’s not going to be easy, but we’re going to get it done.”

In total, Democrats said 3,923 delegates — or 99% of those registered — plan to vote for her.

Roll call begins on Thursday and ends on Monday.

Presidential and vice presidential candidates are typically nominated at their party conventions, but the relatively late date for the 2024 DNC risks running afoul of state ballot access laws.

Ms. Harris, 59, was born in Oakland, California, and is the first Democratic candidate in the party’s nearly 200-year history to come from a Western state.

She rose through state politics from San Francisco district attorney to California attorney general and then U.S. senator.

Before dropping out of the race, Mr. Biden had easily won the Democratic primary, facing no serious opposition despite concerns about his age and winning the support of 99% of pledged DNC delegates.

But the 81-year-old is facing growing pressure from within the party to step down after a poor debate performance with Trump in June.

The decision to hold the nominating process online ahead of the convention, which runs from August 19 to 22, came while Mr Biden was still the presumptive nominee.

The move comes in response to Ohio’s voting rights rules, which require candidates for the November ballot to be formally selected 90 days before the election — or no later than August 7.

Republican leaders in the state have warned they will enforce the law, and although lawmakers eventually created an exemption as they have done in the past, Democrats said the early roll call would prevent further risk of their candidates being removed from the ballot.

Delegates do not need to vote for vice president.

Ms Harris is expected to announce her running mate on Monday.

The Trump campaign and some Republicans have criticized the replacement of Mr. Biden with Ms. Harris, noting that she is the first major-party candidate to win the nomination without holding a press conference or in-person interviews. Some have called the replacement a “coup.”

But Ms Harris has been campaigning hard since being endorsed by Mr Biden, arguing against Mr Trump at rallies and fundraisers across battleground states.

On Friday, the campaign announced that it had raised more than $310m (£242m) in July, with more than two-thirds of those donating money for the first time.

That’s more than double the $138 million the Trump campaign raised last month and marks the largest amount of money raised in the 2024 election cycle so far.