Election 2020: Biden and Harris speak together in Delaware

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and his running mate Kamala Harris held their first campaign event together in Delaware today.

The candidates wore masks and maintained physical distance during their speeches.

In case you missed it, here’s what they said:

California Sen. Kamala Harris called on the American people to organize and “vote like never before because we need more than a victory on November 3rd.”

“We need a mandate that proves that the past few years do not represent who we are or who we aspire to be,” she said. “Joe likes to say that character is on the ballot. And it’s true.”

Harris continued: “When he saw what happened in Charlottesville three years ago today, he knew we were in a battle for the soul of our nation. And together with your help, that’s a battle we will win. Earlier this year, I said I’d do whatever Joe asked me to do. And so now I’m asking you to do the same.”

Sen. Kamala Harris zeroed in on President Trump when discussing why the US leads the world with the most Covid-19 infections.

The US leads the world with more than 5 million coronavirus cases “because of Trump’s failure to take it seriously from the start,” Harris said during her first appearance as Joe Biden’s choice for vice president.

“His refusal to get testing up and running, his flip-flopping on social distancing and wearing masks. His delusional belief that he knows better than the experts. All of that is reason and the reason that an American dies of Covid-19 every 80 seconds,” Harris said regarding Trump.

Harris claimed Trump “inherited the longest economic expansion in history from Barack Obama and Joe Biden” and “ran it straight into the ground.”

“Because of Trump’s failures of leadership our economy has taken one of the biggest hits out of all the major industrialized nations with an unemployment rate that has tripled as of today,” the senator from California said.

During her speech, Sen. Kamala Harris discussed the importance of family in her life, referencing the nickname her kids have for her: “Momala”

She said, “I’ve had a lot of titles over my career and certainly vice president will be great. But ‘Momala’ will always be the one that means the most.” 

Harris talked about how her parents, Jamaican and Indian immigrants, met while protesting for civil rights in Oakland in the 1960s.

“My mother and father, they came from opposite sides of the world to arrive in America. One from India and the other from Jamaica in search of a world-class education. But what brought them together was the civil rights movement of the 1960s. And that’s how they met as students in the streets of Oakland marching and shouting for this thing called justice in a struggle that continues today,” she said.

The California senator said her parents would bring her to protests as a little girl “strapped tightly in my stroller.” 

Watch:

California Sen. Kamala Harris used her opening remarks during her first campaign appearance as Joe Biden’s choice for vice president to honor the women who helped pave the way for her and acknowledge the work needed to curb the coronavirus pandemic.

“After the most competitive primary in history, the country received a resounding message that Joe was the person to lead us forward and, Joe, I’m so proud to stand with you. And I do so mindful of all the heroic and ambitious women before me whose sacrifice, determination and resilience makes my presence here today even possible,” Harris said.

The California Democrat said she was “incredibly honored by this responsibility” and that she was “ready to get to work.” “I am ready to get to work,” she said.

Harris characterized 2020 as a “moment of real consequence for America.”

“Everything we care about, our economy, our health, our children, the kind of country we live in, it’s all on the line. We’re reeling from the worst public health crisis in a century. The President’s mismanagement of the pandemic has plunging us into the worst economic crisis since the great depression,” Harris said.

Former Vice President Joe Biden said he asked Kamala Harris to always tell him the truth and “to be the last voice in the room.”

Here’s what Biden said:

“When I agreed to serve as President Obama’s running mate, he asked me a number of questions most important, he said to me, he asked me what I wanted most … I told him I wanted to be the last person in the room before he made important decisions. That’s what I asked Kamala. I asked Kamala to be the last voice in the room.” 

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris both walked out together for their first campaign event wearing masks.

As Biden spoke during the event in Delaware, the senator from California sat in a chair at a distance.

Their spouses are also wearing masks and reporters in the room appear to be sitting apart from each other.

As the US continues to struggle through the coronavirus pandemic, former Vice President Joe Biden offered words of solace for the more than 5 million Americans who have contracted the disease.

“The Joe Biden and Kamala Harris administration will have a comprehensive plan to meet the challenge of Covid-19 and turn the corner on this pandemic, masking, clear science-based guidance, dramatically scaling up testing, getting states and local governments the resources they need to open the schools and businesses safely. We can do this,” Biden said at a campaign event, the first with him and Sen. Kamala Harris, his pick for vice president.

Biden said the country needs “a president and a vice president willing to lead and take responsibility.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden said during his opening remarks that his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris’ story is “America’s story.”

He said she is “a child of immigrants” who “knows personally how immigrant families enrich our country as well as the challenges of what it means to grow up Black and Indian-American in the United States of America.” 

He continued: “And this morning, all across the nation, little girls woke up, especially little Black and brown girls that feel overlooked and undervalued in their communities, but today — today just maybe they’re seeing themselves for the first time in a new way as president and vice presidents.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden used his opening remarks at a campaign event in Wilmington, Delaware, to praise Sen. Kamala Harris who he called “the right person” for the role of vice president.

Biden called this upcoming presidential election a “serious moment for our nation.”

“I had a great choice but I have no doubt that I picked the right person to join me as the next vice president of the United States of America and that’s senator Kamala Harris,” Biden said. “Kamala, as you all know, is smart, she’s tough, she’s experienced, she’s a proven fighter for the backbone of this country. The middle class. For all those who are struggling to get into the middle class. Kamala knows how to govern, she knows how to make the hard calls. She’s ready to do this job on day one.”

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Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, walked out together today for their first campaign event in Wilmington, Delaware.

Joe Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, and Kamala Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff, shared their excitement moments before today’s campaign event.

Harris’ husband tweeted a photo of Biden and Harris at tonight’s venue.

Jill Biden shared a photo of herself with Harris’ husband both wearing masks.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and running mate California Sen. Kamala Harris will soon speak together at Dupont High School in Wilmington, Delaware, at their first campaign event. Their speech is expected to begin at 4:30 p.m. ET.

Inside the venue, the press can be seen sitting socially distant.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, are set to make their first appearance together soon in Delaware.

The speech comes the day after Biden chose Harris after a months-long vice presidential vetting process, making her the first Black woman and first person of Indian descent to be tapped for a major political party’s ticket.

Their spouses, Jill Biden and Doug Emhoff, will also attend the speech in Wilmington, Jill Biden spokesperson Michael LaRosa said.

After the speech, Biden and Harris are set to appear together at an online fundraiser for “grassroots” small-dollar donors.

In a tweet that could preview their message, Biden tweeted Wednesday morning that if he and Harris win, “we’re going to inherit multiple crises, a nation divided, and a world in disarray. We won’t have a minute to waste.”

“That’s exactly why I picked her: She’s ready to lead on day one,” he tweeted.

An unconventional campaign: Whether and how the two can hit the campaign trail, together or separately, remains to be seen.

Next week’s Democratic National Convention would ordinarily kick off a frenetic two-and-a-half month sprint to the Nov. 3 election, but the coronavirus pandemic has effectively sidelined Biden from campaigning.

He spent July delivering weekly speeches detailing planks of his economic agenda.

The last time Biden held a campaign rally — March 9 in Detroit, on the eve of the Michigan primary — Harris appeared with him on stage, as the 77-year-old former vice president called himself a “bridge” to a new generation of Democratic leaders.

The Biden campaign confirms that a motorcade including a silver SUV and a black SUV with DC plates seen pulling into the Biden compound was that of his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris.

They are hosting their first campaign event together later today.

Sen. Kamala Harris on Tuesday became the first Black and South Asian American woman chosen for national office by a major political party, when former Vice President Joe Biden named the moderate former prosecutor to be his running mate this fall.

Harris, 55, has spent her career breaking barriers.

In California, she was the first woman — and first Black woman — to serve as the state’s top law enforcement official. She is the first Black woman from California to serve in the US Senate, and second from any state, after Illinois’ Carol Moseley Braun. Harris is also the first person of Indian descent to appear on a presidential ticket.

And if Biden defeats President Trump in November, Harris would become the first woman in US history to serve as vice president.

Harris follows Democrat Geraldine Ferraro, in 1984, and Republican Sarah Palin, in 2008, as only the third woman to be chosen as the running mate on a presidential ticket. Both of those campaigns lost to icons of the opposing parties — Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, respectively.

During the Democratic presidential primary, Harris, who would drop out before the first round of voting, often found herself stuck in between the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, led by Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and its moderate establishment, headlined by Biden. The left criticized Harris’ record on criminal justice, from her election as district attorney in San Francisco to her time as California’s attorney general.

Those concerns were amplified after Harris’ spectacular entry into the race in January 2019, when her announcement was greeted by an adoring crowd of 20,000 outdoors in Oakland, California. Her campaign would become the most expansively waged by any Black woman in American political history. Decades after Shirley Chisholm ran for president in 1972, Harris amassed more than $35 million dollars over 11 months, despite the challenges that Black women candidates face raising in money. Read more.

CNN’s Abby Phillip, Jasmine Wright and Nia-Malika Henderson discuss the historic pick:

Joe Biden started with Kamala Harris, and in the end, came back to her.

Biden interviewed the California senator over video chat as he entered the homestretch of his search. And although the former vice president would ultimately interview 11 prospective running mates in the span of 10 days, Biden ultimately went with the woman who had always made the most sense to him.

CNN spoke to more than a dozen Biden advisers, friends and top Democrats involved in the campaign’s search who painted a picture of a deliberative and intense process, one that saw the former vice president actively consider a range of candidates even as many around him believed the position was Harris’ to lose from the outset.

The search was complicated by the coronavirus pandemic, with Biden unable to spend considerable time on the campaign trail with any of his prospective running mates. Candidates like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and others rose to greater prominence over the last several months of protests and pandemic, but Harris always had a key edge: Biden has a familiarity with the California senator that grew during their time in the Democratic primary.

When Biden finally met with Harris virtually, he already felt a “genuine personal connection,” a source said.

Some close to the former vice president harbored negative feelings on the way Harris pointedly attacked Biden on issues of race during the first Democratic debate in 2019. Those concerns raised such alarm bells among high-profile Harris supporters that they organized a call with the campaign to defend the California senator.

But multiple people who Biden spoke with during the vetting process said they got a sense the Harris was always a top choice.

“I always felt he would come back to his comfort zone,” said a close Biden friend, “which was Kamala Harris.”

Read more:

DETROIT, MICHIGAN - MARCH 09: Sen. Kamala Harris (L) (D-CA), hugs Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden after introducing him at a campaign rally at Renaissance High School on March 09, 2020 in Detroit, Michigan. Michigan will hold its primary election tomorrow. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Related article A virtual running mate search: How a personal connection led Joe Biden to pick Kamala Harris

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee, is set to accept the party’s nomination and deliver his acceptance speech next Thursday during the Democratic National Convention held in a virtual setting. Vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris is expected to do the same a night earlier.

The Democratic National Convention Committee on Tuesday announced its speaker line-up for the convention, unveiling a list that includes both Barack and Michelle Obama, Jill Biden and a host of women Biden had considered as his running mate.

The speaker list for the convention has been scaled back significantly after coronavirus forced Democratic planners to scrap plans for an in-person event in Milwaukee and shrink most of the live programming to two hours each night from 9 p.m. ET to 11 p.m. ET.

Michelle Obama and Jill Biden will headline the first two nights of the convention, and Harris, along with former President Barack Obama, are expected to deliver the keynote Wednesday evening. Biden, introduced by his family, will accept the nomination on Thursday night.

The list of speakers from the four-night event aims to represent the ideological diversity inside the Democratic Party, with representatives from the party’s left like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaking, along with more moderate members of the party like vulnerable Alabama Sen. Doug Jones and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar each getting key speaking slots.

Monday’s speaker line-up features the broadest representation of Joe Biden’s supporters across the Democratic spectrum, from Sanders, a leader of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to Klobuchar, his one-time primary opponent. Former Gov. John Kasich, who ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2016, is also slated to speak on the same evening.

Neither Biden nor Harris will travel to Milwaukee, the original convention site, due to safety concerns related to Covid-19. Instead, Biden will accept the nomination from Delaware.

Read more about the DNC line-up here.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised Sen. Kamala Harris on Wednesday as “the best person that Joe Biden could name” for his vice presidential running mate.

“There are many people who would do no harm. There are many people who could be president. But to have those two combined with the person he had the comfort level with to serve,” Pelosi said during an interview on MSNBC. “Let’s recognize her not only as the first woman of color to be vice president, but also the best possible person he could have chosen to proceed into this election and of course to win and to serve the American people.”

House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn, the highest-ranking African American in Congress, whose endorsement of Joe Biden helped propel the former vice president to victory in the South Carolina primary, said Sen. Kamala Harris as Biden’s running mate pick means a “great deal” to him.

“He really, as Barack Obama said, he nailed this,” Clyburn said in an interview on CNN. 

Clyburn said that Harris, the first Black and South Asian women chosen for national office by a major political party, exemplifies how people from diverse backgrounds can add insight and perspective to lawmaking. 

“She knows what it is to be different or to be the other. Bringing that in, with the success that she’s had breaking through in areas that no woman had broken into before, I think all of that gives Joe Biden the kind of aura around his campaign that will endear him to the vast majority of American people,” Clyburn said. 

Clyburn also dismissed any concerns about Harris performing poorly among some Black voters in the presidential primaries. 

“People were saying to me that to them, the dream ticket would be Biden and Harris. Biden and Harris. They wanted to see her at the second spot on this ticket, and that’s a reason that a lot of people were not supporting her, because they wanted to see Biden as the nominee and wanted to see her where she is today,” Clyburn said. 

Watch:

Sen. Roy Blunt, a member of Senate GOP leadership, weighed in on Sen. Kamala Harris, telling a group of reporters on Capitol Hill:

“I don’t vote with her very often, we don’t agree on our votes, but I served with her, I like her. We’re on the Intel Committee together. She has normally stayed very well within the standards of that committee, which in the Senate is the least political of all committees. And she’s smart and she’s tough.”

Asked if it would be a tough ticket to beat, Blunt said: “We’ll have to see later what she adds to the ticket.”

Sen. Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s running mate in the 2016 presidential election, cheered Joe Biden’s pick of Sen. Kamala Harris to be the vice presidential nominee, calling it a “historic” choice.

“Her public service track record is a significant one, worthy of praise,” Kaine said on the Senate floor, ticking off her work as San Francisco district attorney, California’s attorney general and senator. He then turned to her personal story, noting that she is the first black woman and first South Asian American woman to be on a major party’s presidential ticket.

“In the year 2020, when we are commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the amendment that guaranteed women the right to vote, I can think of no greater way to celebrate a centennial than for one of our colleagues, who is a woman, to have a chance to break a glass ceiling,” said Kaine. 

The Virginia senator then said that the US is “uniquely bad in electing women to higher office” compared to the rest of the world. 

“So regardless of how it all works out between now in November, and regardless of our own political affiliations, this is a good day, I believe for the country and a good day for the Senate, when one of the 100 is recognized in such a way and introduced to the American public with an opportunity to serve at a significant level,” Kaine added.

A law enforcement source tells CNN that Kamala Harris is now under the protection of the United States Secret Service following Joe Biden’s announcement that the senator is his pick for vice president.

Her code name was not immediately known as the source said it likely had not been selected yet.

CNN saw Harris pull out of her Washington, DC, apartment in her new motorcade Wednesday morning on her way to join Joe Biden in Delaware.

Kamala Harris being named Joe Biden’s vice presidential pick sets a match-up between the California senator and Vice President Mike Pence on the debate stage in October.

The vice presidential debate is scheduled for Oct. 7, and will be hosted at The University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Vice presidential debates rarely change the course of presidential elections but could showcase the strengths and vulnerabilities of each ticket weeks before the November election.

Before Harris ended her own presidential bid in December, the senator participated in five Democratic primary debates. A former prosecutor, Harris showed the ability to command a debate stage and deliver attacks using her courtroom-sharpened skills. Her campaign’s argument at the time was that out of the numerous Democratic candidates Harris was in the best position to “prosecute the case” against President Trump.

Harris generated one of the most electric moments of the race at the first debate in June when she took aim at Biden. She confronted Biden over his 1970s-era opposition to the federal government’s role in using school busing to integrate schools while highlighting her personal story as young child who benefited from early busing in Berkeley, California.

Biden appeared unprepared for the line of attack and bristled as Harris repeatedly pressed him on his decades-old position.

For his part, Pence has participated in one national debate. In October 2016, Pence debated then-Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine, a senator from Virginia, at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.

Pence, who was the governor of Indiana at the time, delivered a steady performance and focused his attacks on 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Pence, who was calm and refused to be baited, largely ignored Kaine’s attacks on then-Republican nominee Donald Trump. He instead sought to lampoon Clinton over vulnerabilities like her private email server and record as secretary of state.

The 2016 Democratic vice presidential candidate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, offered some advice to his Senate colleague – and now 2020 Democratic VP candidate, Kamala Harris.

“I think they should really focus on doing a healthy number of events together, because there’s a tendency – like, you want to do as many events as you can, so ‘you do your events, I’ll do mine, and then we can do more.’ But I think, I think the public likes to see the working relationship, what’s the working relationship going to be like.”

He said the events he did with Hillary Clinton during their 2016 run “were more fun. I think they were more fun for me, they were more fun for her. And I think it’s a good thing to do.”

Kaine also said he thinks Harris will hold up just fine in the upcoming vice presidential debate against Mike Pence set for October: “She’s, she’s very, very good. I mean, obviously, her judiciary, intel performance has always demonstrated that she knows how to debate and deal with a witness so she’ll be fine. Yeah.”

California Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell said he is not concerned that Sen. Kamala Harris might be too far left for some voters.

“Republican women voters are moving away from Donald Trump. They’re disgusted by him,” Swalwell told CNN’s Jim Sciutto, adding that he spoke to some of these women voters yesterday and seeing Kamala Harris on the ticket does not make them lean back towards Trump.

The Biden-Harris ticket does not take America back to where the country was before Trump, but hopes to “do better than where we were before,” Swalwell said, pointing to issues like freedom of the press, racial justice and income inequality.

He then repeated his confidence in Harris.

“I know who Kamala Harris is because I come from the same District Attorney’s office in Alameda county. And that office had a creed, which was we don’t seek wins, we seek justice. And I think that has defined her career,” he said. “I think that’s why she’ll be a great partner for Joe Biden.”

Joe Biden this morning offered some insight on why he picked Sen. Kamala Harris to be his running mate. 

Biden tweeted that he picked Harris as his running mate because she’s “ready to lead on day one,” an argument he has also often made for himself on the campaign trail. 

“If Kamala Harris and I are elected, we’re going to inherit multiple crises, a nation divided, and a world in disarray. We won’t have a minute to waste. That’s exactly why I picked her: She’s ready to lead on day one,” Biden wrote in a tweet. 

The Biden campaign went on the offensive in their response to President Trump’s Wednesday morning tweet, saying that the “suburban housewife” will vote for him.  

Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates issued a statement hitting Trump on the tweet, saying it proves “that he’s dumbfounded after Joe Biden’s selection of a strong running mate who he himself said not two weeks ago would be a ‘fine choice.’”

Here’s the full statement:

“Donald Trump’s presidency is melting down after his failed, divisive, erratic leadership has cost over 160,000 American lives, tens of millions of jobs, and left the United States the hardest-hit country in the world by COVID-19,” Bates said in a statement. “As he struggles in vain attempts to tear the American people apart and distract the country from his devastating mismanagement with clumsy, bigoted lies, he’s only further discrediting himself — and proving that he’s dumbfounded after Joe Biden’s selection of a strong running mate who he himself said not two weeks ago would be a ‘fine choice.’”

Jill Biden, Joe Biden’s wife, and Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’ husband, will both attend today’s campaign event in Wilmington, according to Jill Biden spokesperson Michael LaRosa.

Jill Biden welcomed Emhoff to the team yesterday with this tweet:

Emhoff responded that he is “ready to work!”

About Emhoff: Emhoff had been a quietly supportive presence during Harris’ own 2020 run. He was often spotted backstage or at the edge of Harris’ crowds at both her campaign events and book tour events last year, although he once rushed onstage to grab an animal rights protester who leapt on stage to confront Harris.

The Brooklyn native — who moved to Southern California in his teens and attended the USC Gould School of Law — launched his own firm in 2000 before Venable acquired it in 2006. At DLA Piper, Emhoff has continued to focus on business, entertainment and intellectual property law in both California and Washington, DC.

The couple was set up on a blind date in 2013 when Harris was California’s attorney general by her best friend, Chrisette Hudlin.

Kamala Harris started out in the vice presidential search process as a favorite because of her experience as a senator, California attorney general and district attorney in San Francisco and her extensive vetting as a presidential candidate.

Ultimately, she was chosen by Joe Biden the “common sense pick” who everybody could agree would “do no harm,” a source familiar with the vetting process told CNN.

With her multi-racial background as the child of two immigrants to the United States, her allies believed she could complement Biden as a symbol of a changing America.

She also proved to be a hardworking surrogate for Biden in recent months, taking part in everything from virtual policy events with voters in swing districts to a live DJ dance party fundraiser with Diplo and D-Nice online.

When Trump tweeted about delaying the election in late July, she responded on Twitter by saying he is “terrified” because “he knows he’s going to lose to @JoeBiden. It will require every single one of us to make that happen.”

Still, some members of Biden’s team resisted choosing Harris. A recent Politico story noted that former Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who was helping vet candidates, was still galled by her attack on Biden during a June 2019 debate in Miami, when she criticized his work with segregationist senators and highlighted his fight against busing to desegregate schools decades ago.

The pushback against Harris apparently became so strong that Biden felt the need to defend her during his July 28 press conference, where an Associated Press photo captured the talking points about her on his notecard that included “do not hold grudges” and “great help to campaign.”

Harris also benefited from being a running mate who could match this turbulent moment in American history.

Many of the issues at the center of her life’s work – including criminal justice reform, improving health care for Black Americans and tackling income inequality – have come to the forefront in the three-pronged crisis America is now facing: the coronavirus pandemic (which has disproportionately affected communities of color), the fight against systemic racism and an economic recession.

Read more here.

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and his running mate Kamala Harris will deliver remarks this afternoon in Wilmington, Delaware.

After the speech, Biden and Harris are set to appear together at an online fundraiser for “grassroots” small-dollar donors.

Yesterday, Biden announced Harris was his vice presidential pick for the 2020 election ballot, making the California senator the first Black and South Asian American woman to run on a major political party’s presidential ticket.

“I’ve decided that Kamala Harris is the best person to help me take this fight to Trump and Mike Pence and then to lead this nation starting in January 2021,” the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee wrote in an email Tuesday.

In selecting Harris, Biden adds to the Democratic ticket a former primary rival who centered her own presidential bid on her readiness to take on Trump and show Americans she would fight for them. She rose to national prominence within the Democratic Party by interrogating Trump nominees during Senate hearings, from former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Harris’ selection came months after Biden committed to picking a woman to join him on the Democratic ticket. Harris, 55, is now the third woman to serve as a vice presidential candidate for a major political party, following Geraldine Ferraro as the Democratic vice presidential pick in 1984 and Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential pick in 2008.

Aware that his age could be a concern to some voters, Biden, 77, has said that he is “a bridge” to a new slate of Democratic leaders, and by selecting Harris, more than 20 years his junior, he has elevated a leading figure from a younger generation within the party.