It's over! How Dem elites locked in Harris

This show of overwhelming force — and fear of a second Trump presidency — has reflected the party's feral approach to survival in 2024.

• With Biden officially sidelined, relief — and money — coursed through the Democratic Party on Monday. Donors roared their approval by directing more than $100 million to Harris' team since Sunday afternoon.

Harris' rollout was as well-choreographed as it was stunning, involving hundreds of phone calls by Harris' team to senators, House members and governors.

• Just 30 hours after Biden had announced he was dropping his run for reelection, 186 Democratic House members, 43 senators and 23 governors had endorsed Harris.
• Another 23 lawmakers — including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both New York Democrats — hadn't endorsed Harris but had released encouraging statements.
• That push to gain commitments from a majority of the nearly 4,000 Democratic delegates across the nation quickly became a formality.
• Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi gave Harris, a fellow Californian, a boost Monday evening when she led her state's nearly 500 delegates to unanimously endorse Harris.
• By late Monday, Harris and her team had gained commitments from a majority of the party's delegates — enough to clinch the nomination.

The big picture: More than 333 million people live in America. But one man controls the Republican Party. And a few dozen top Democrats — backed by polls showing widespread alarm in the party about Biden's chances in November — urgently redirected its nomination process.

• After Biden's disastrous debate performance on June 27, it took three agonizing weeks for him to bow out. But in the end, the outcome that was obvious to many Democrats outside the White House became unavoidable to the one running it.
• A few elected Democrats talked about a deliberate nominating process that wouldn't be decided until the party's convention a month from now in Chicago.

But Harris, Biden's designated heir apparent, moved quickly to shut the door.

• The efficiency of her team's push for support contrasted with the ragged, unsuccessful campaign she ran for president in 2020, before Biden picked the former senator and California attorney general to be his running mate.
• Now, Democrats just need to finish the paperwork — and prepare for the pageantry of Harris' coronation in Chicago, beginning Aug. 19.

Driving the news: The Democratic National Committee confirmed late Monday that it would hold a "virtual roll call" to guarantee that it will "deliver a presidential nominee by August 7 of this year," DNC chair Jamie Harrison told reporters on a conference call.

• That means Harris will be able to select a running mate based on her own timeline.

Zoom in: The speed with which state parties fell into line behind Harris — New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee were the first out of the gate — meant the outcome never was in doubt.

• Democratic-aligned unions were just as fast.
• "It's an avalanche of support," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers , told Axios.
• Hollywood's biggest names, almost on cue, read endorsement lines: Barbara Streisand, Spike Lee, Aaron Sorkin, and more.

Zoom out: Harris' campaign wants to use the Chicago convention to accomplish two main tasks: Celebrate her and savage Trump.

• For the first goal, the convention will go heavy on testimonials and biographical sketches of the country's first Black and South Asian woman to be a party's nominee for president.
• "In life you don't get a second opportunity to make a first impression," said Erik Smith, the Democratic convention's creative director in 2008, 2012 and 2016.
• "But for the vice president, that's what this is."