U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris
| Photo Credit: AP

Kamala Harris, the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic party, has called herself the underdog in the race to the White House but expressed confidence that she would win in November due to her people-powered campaign.

In her first fundraiser since becoming her party’s candidate for president, Ms. Harris told supporters that this year’s election was a choice between two visions for the country — one looking toward the future and one that wants to undo the country’s progress.

“We are the underdogs in this race. Level set, ok. We are the underdogs in this race, but this is a people-powered campaign,” Vice President Harris said, addressing a group of 800 fundraisers in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

“This is a people-powered campaign and we have momentum,” Ms. Harris, 59 said.

During the fundraiser on July 27, she raised USD 1.4 million as against the original goal of USD 400,000.

Amidst loud applause from the audience, she said that her campaign has “earned the support of enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination.”

“What kind of country do we want to live in? Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion and rule of law or do we want to live in a country of chaos, fear and hate?” she asked as she continued to attack her Republican rival Donald Trump, 78. She hoped that former president Trump would agree to do a debate with her.

“You may have seen he just pulled out of our debate. I hope he reconsiders because we have a lot to talk about,” Harris, who has Indian roots, said.

In her speech, she described her background as a prosecutor.

“In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type,” she said.

She alleged that Trump was spreading lies against her.

“You may have noticed, Donald Trump has been resorting to some wild lies about my record. And some of what he and his running mate are saying, well, it’s just plain weird. I mean that’s the box you put that in,” she said.

Vice President Kamala Harris, left, and President Joe Biden. File.
| Photo Credit: AP

The Trump campaign has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission arguing that money raised for U.S. President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection bid could not be transferred to Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.

The complaint was filed on Tuesday by the Trump campaign’s general counsel David Warrington and argues that transferring the funds to Harris’s presidential campaign would amount to “flagrantly violating” the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971.

Also read | ​Democratic departure: On Joe Biden bowing out of the presidential race

On Sunday, President Biden announced that he was withdrawing from the race for the White House on November 5 and endorsed Ms. Harris amid mounting pressure from top Democrats and donors following his disastrous presidential debate against Trump in late June.

“Kamala Harris is seeking to perpetrate a USD 91.5 million dollar heist of Joe Biden’s leftover campaign cash — a brazen money grab that would constitute the single largest excessive contribution and biggest violation in the history of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended,” Mr. Warrington said.

The Harris campaign dismissed it as baseless. In his complaint that was first reported by The New York Times, Warrington accused Biden and Harris of “flagrantly violating the Act by making and receiving an excessive contribution of nearly one hundred million dollars, and for filing fraudulent forms with the Commission purporting to repurpose one candidate’s principal campaign committee for the use of another candidate.” “Kamala Harris is in the process of committing the largest campaign finance violation in American history and she is using the Commission’s own forms to do it,” Warrington said in his filing.

“The Commission must not and cannot sit idly by while one candidate takes nearly one hundred million dollars from the authorised committee of another, in violation of the Act and the will of the donors who gave the money in the first place,” he wrote.

Mr. Warrington alleged that if “Kamala Harris were a candidate for something in 2024, federal law requires her to have filed a Statement of Candidacy and for her name to have appeared in the name of her authorised committee. But Kamala Harris’s name does not appear in the name of her purported authorised committee, ‘Biden for President,’ and, until Sunday, no Statement of Candidacy existed for her.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak responded to the FEC complaint in a statement on Tuesday, saying, “Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energised to defeat Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again allies, but baseless legal claims – like the ones they’ve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections – will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election.” The statement also cited the campaign’s fundraising efforts so far, “raising USD 100 million in our first 36 hours and signing up 58,000 volunteers.” It’s unlikely that the commission would take any action until well after Election Day, given its slow pace of resolving enforcement questions, CNN reported.

An FEC spokesperson declined to comment, citing the agency’s policy on not discussing enforcement matters, the report said.

Washington:

Hollywood star George Clooney — one of the first high-profile Democratic activists to urge Joe Biden not to seek reelection — on Tuesday announced his backing for Kamala Harris, while hailing Biden’s exit.

“President Biden has shown what true leadership is. He’s saving democracy once again. We’re all so excited to do whatever we can to support Vice President Harris in her historic quest,” Clooney said in a statement to CNN.

A major fundraiser for Democratic candidates and longtime Biden booster, Clooney broke ranks two weeks ago by openly calling on the 81-year-old president to give way to a younger candidate so that the party would have a better chance of beating Donald Trump in November.

“I love Joe Biden,” Clooney wrote in The New York Times, shocking many. “I consider him a friend, and I believe in him… But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time.”

With Biden at the top of the ticket, the Oscar-winner said, Democrats “are not going to win in November,” will lose control of the Senate, and won’t gain a majority in the House of Representatives.

After days of mounting pressure, Biden on Sunday abruptly announced he was leaving the race and endorsed his vice president. Harris has rapidly garnered overwhelming support from party leaders and raked in a huge quantity of donations from voters.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)