The Obamas with Harris, the whole party with her

"We're calling to tell you that Michelle and I are proud to support you and we're going to do everything we can to make sure you win the election and get to the Oval Office," Barack Obama says over the phone. "I can't make this call without telling my girlfriend Kamala: I'm proud of you. This is going to be historic,' Michelle Obama adds. Smiling as she stares at her mobile phone, Kamala Harris replies expressing her gratitude: 'Thank you both. It means so much to me. We will also have some fun' in the coming months'. The video capturing the phone call between the Obamas and Harris was leaked online yesterday.

It was a symbolic handover of the baton from Obama, 62, the first African-American president and one of the youngest ever elected to the White House, to Harris, 59, who is already a historical figure in her own right as vice-president - the first woman to hold this office - and who is now running to become the first woman of Asian and African-American descent to lead the US.

Harris has already won the public support of the majority of the delegates to the Democratic Convention starting on 19 August in Chicago. The Democratic National Committee plans a virtual nomination vote for Harris and his deputy by 7 August, a kind of investiture even before the Convention.

The announcement of Harris' candidacy has given new life to the Democratic base: in just a few days, more than $120 million has been raised, largely from small donations, to finance the campaign. A real race, just over a hundred days, to try to beat Donald Trump, who has an already cohesive team and a well-defined programme of government. Harris has also gained ground in the polls: in the average of all surveys published this week, reported by the website FiveThyrtyEight, the Democrats have jumped just above the Republicans in the Americans' voting intentions: 45% for Harris, against 44.8 with Trump.

As chief prosecutor of San Francisco Harris, in 2008, had been the first senior American public official to support the nomination of the young and unknown senator from Chicago, Obama. The two have been friends ever since. However, in the hours following Biden's withdrawal, Obama had been very cautious. Even in 2020 he had waited until the convention to unveil his support for the man who had been his deputy for two terms. On Sunday, in the hours following the announcement of Biden's step back, he had issued a statement that did not mention Harri. But it did talk about finding a candidate for the post-Biden era: 'I have extraordinary confidence that our party's leaders will be able to create a process from which an exceptional candidate will emerge,' he wrote. Time is very short. And probably the Obamas, the most popular dem figures in the US, did not want to wait until 19 August.