US Vice-President Kamala Harris has passed the threshold to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination in a vote of party delegates. Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison today announced that Ms Harris has won enough votes from Democratic delegates to win the party’s nomination for president. She formally became the nominee today after securing the support of 2,350 delegates. She ran unopposed in the virtual roll call after President Joe Biden stepped aside last month and endorsed her.

Ms Harris said she was honoured to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States. Kamala Harris was the sole candidate on the ballot for a five-day electronic vote of nearly 4,000 party convention delegates. She will be officially crowned at a Chicago convention later this month.

Ms Harris is the first black and first South Asian woman to become the White House standard-bearer for a major US political party. If she defeats Republican nominee Donald Trump in November, she would be America’s first female president.