Vice President Kamala Harris is officially the only candidate seeking the Democratic presidential nomination after a key deadline passed Tuesday evening with no one else qualifying.
According to the Democratic National Committee, 99% of delegates signed Harris' nominating petition.
With no internal competition, Democrats will avoid the messy fight that some party officials feared when President Joe Biden stepped aside in the race less than two weeks ago.
“Our Party has met this unprecedented moment with a transparent, democratic, and orderly process to unite behind a nominee with a proven record who will lead us in the fight ahead,” DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison said in a statement Tuesday night.
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Delegates to next month's Democratic National Convention in Chicago will begin voting virtually to formalize Harris' nomination Thursday morning, sticking to the party's existing plan to finalize its nominee before an Aug. 7 ballot access deadline in Ohio. Harris' campaign has indicated she will select her vice presidential running mate before then, as well.
Democrats raced to rewrite their nominating rules after Biden dropped his re-election bid nine days ago, creating a lightning-fast nomination process that was open to anyone but was almost immediately seen as favoring Harris.
Any candidate who wanted to seek the nomination had until 6 p.m. ET Tuesday to secure the support of at least 300 delegates to qualify; Harris was the only candidate who did, according to the Democratic National Committee.
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With virtually the entire party united behind Harris, the only candidates who declared their intentions to challenge her were a handful of unknown figures with no known support bases or funding.
Marianne Williamson, the self-help author who ran a long-shot Democratic presidential campaign in 2020, said she was planning to vie for the nomination at the Chicago convention but ultimately opted against throwing her name in the ring. She re-suspended her campaign Monday night.
"We did everything possible to stand for a blitz primary, an open convention and so forth. Yet the way the rules were made there truly was no way, Kamala’s momentum was in full swing, and all we could have done is create noise," Williamson wrote to supporters. "I was in the race to create fundamental change, yes — but not as a chaos agent or metaphorical bomb thrower."
Convention delegates will begin an unusual preconvention virtual roll call vote to ratify Harris as their top candidate. Voting will begin Thursday and continue for several days, according to the party's plans, with a ceremonial in-person roll call planned for the convention, as well.
Even though Democrats stripped so-called super delegates of much of their power a few years ago, they will be able to vote virtually for Harris, the DNC said, since Harris has demonstrated that she has already secured an overwhelmingly majority support, meaning there's no chance of the super delegates changing the outcome.
Democrats had been planning to nominate Biden virtually since May, when they realized they would have an issue in Ohio. The state initially set its deadline for all parties to submit the names of their candidates before the Democratic National Convention, and it was slow to resolve the matter.
While Ohio election officials argued that Democrats do not need to take drastic measures like a preconvention virtual roll call, conservative groups have already signaled their intention to sue if Democrats miss the state's Aug. 7 deadline. Democrats say the party cannot risk litigation that could result in its losing its place on Ohio's ballot this fall.
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