How Kamala Harris took control of the Democratic Party

[brooklynite]

As long as Joe Biden still believed, there could be no Plan B.


The boss had earned that much. Vice President Harris approved no discussions. Campaign advisers did not break ranks in public.


But some key preparations were still put in place for the most spectacular transformation in recent American political history — a flash-bang midsummer swap at the top of a presidential ticket, an outpouring of volunteer energy, a rebound in the polls and a flood of campaign cash best described in fractions of $1 billion.


The national party bosses quietly consulted their rule books. State party chairs met in secret. Others operated without orders to prepare the ground.


Donna Brazile, the former Democratic Party chair, and Bakari Sellers, the former South Carolina state lawmaker, started running their own delegate whip operation weeks before Biden bowed out. There was no public list of the 4,000 or so first-ballot convention voters — the risk of it leaking, causing harassment and death threats, hung in the air. But Brazile and Sellers knew the local politicians, the union leaders and the state party chairs who ran most delegations.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/28/kamala-harris-control-democratic-party/