Kamala Harris has officially received the necessary amount of votes from delegates to become the Democratic US presidential nominee.

The more than 4,000 convention delegates had until Monday to submit their ballots, but no other candidate qualified to challenge Harris.


Harris’s nomination took place via a virtual vote.

She has become the first woman of colour leading a major national ticket, with a chance to become the first woman president in American history, reports The Washington Post.

u200bUS Vice President Kamala Harris

US Vice President Kamala Harris

Getty

Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said: “The fact that we can say today — just one day after we opened voting — that the vice president has crossed the majority threshold and will officially be our nominee next week, folks, that is simply outstanding.”

The new nomination contest allowed anyone to run if they obtained 300 signatures of delegates supporting their bid, including no more than 50 from any single delegation, while meeting other basic qualifications.

No elected Democratic politician apart from the Vice President Harris their intention to seek those signatures. The candidates who did signal their intent to seek the nomination failed to obtain the required signatures.

Harris will also be the second female major-party nominee, after Hillary Clinton in 2016.

More to come…