Nancy Pelosi rejects claims Joe Biden was ‘pushed’ from running again

Since then, Democrats have rallied around Harris, whose campaign says it raised $US82 million ($120 million) during the party’s national convention in Chicago last week.

In a memo released on Sunday (Monday AEST), Harris-Walz campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said a third of those donations came from first-time contributors, two-thirds of whom were women and one-fifth young people.

The highly influential Pelosi is the person Democrats credit most for Biden’s withdrawal; at last week’s convention in Chicago, fans sported a badge with her face superimposed on an image of a poster for the movie trilogy, The Godfather. (Pelosi wasn’t “amused”.)

After Biden’s disastrous debate, Pelosi spoke to the president personally to voice the concerns of fellow Democrats that he might not only lose the election but could also rob the party of its hopes of winning the House, which is needed to pass legislation and govern efficiently.

Actor Mindy Kaling, who hosted day three of the convention, acknowledged the part Pelosi played in the pressure campaign Biden faced by introducing her on stage as “the mother of dragons”.

But speaking on the sidelines of the convention, the California stalwart rejected suggestions Biden was “pushed,” saying it was his decision alone not to seek a second term.

“The decision has been made, and we are on our way in making another decision: that we will win, and that’s what we are focusing on,” Pelosi said.

“I don’t want to go into credit or blame for how this happened. It was no one’s decision but the president of the United States, and we applaud him for it; we salute him for it.”

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Asked if she had spoken to Biden since he withdrew from the race, she replied: “I have a long friendship with him that I think will sustain [beyond] the politics of this election. But I also think that winning this election is essential to supporting his legacy – which is a great one, and the most consequential in modern times.”

In a bid to counter Harris’ momentum, Trump is ramping up his own campaign with a busier schedule in battleground states and smaller-scale events designed to keep him focused on key policy topics to draw a contrast with Harris, such as immigration and the economy.

The former president, who has struggled to recalibrate since Biden dropped out of the race, got a boost on Friday (Saturday AEST) when former Democrat-turned-independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr dropped his campaign and endorsed Trump in the hope of getting a cabinet position in a second Trump presidency.

“I think he’s going to have a huge influence on this campaign. Actually much bigger than you’ll see in the polls,” Trump told a rally in Arizona where he and Kennedy – the scion of one of America’s biggest political dynasties – shared the stage. “All who supported Bobby’s campaign: I simply ask you to help us build this coalition.”

Both Harris and Trump will return to the campaign trail this week, with Harris and her running mate Tim Walz embarking on a bus tour of Georgia – the state that helped propel Biden to victory in 2020 – while Trump heads to Detroit, Michigan, to address a National Guard conference, followed by a trip to Wisconsin on Thursday and a rally in Pennsylvania on Friday.

All three states that Trump is hitting this week are part of the so-called “blue wall” that he won from Hillary Clinton in 2016 but narrowly lost to Biden four years ago; all three will determine who wins on November 5.

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Both Democrats and Republicans expect Harris to get an uptick in the polls following the exuberant Democratic National Convention where she delivered a rousing speech, casting herself as someone who could “chart a new path forward” and end the division and negativity of the past.

But the highly scripted Harris has not yet done a press conference or one-on-one interview since taking over from Biden, and a major test will be the presidential debate against Trump on September 10.