Democrats set to approve party platform without Harris' candidacy update

Delegates at the Democratic National Convention are set to vote Monday night on their 2024 party platform, which lays out familiar priorities for the party but wrongly names President Joe Biden as the candidate running for reelection.

The largely ceremonial vote at Chicago's convention will signal the party coalescing around a singular vision for the next four years though a somewhat outdated one, as Vice President Kamala Harris has only outlined a few of her own specific policy positions since she took over the Democratic presidential ticket last month.

The Democratic National Committee on Sunday said the more than 90-page document makes a strong statement about the historic work that President Biden and Vice President Harris have accomplished hand-in-hand, and offers a vision for a progressive agenda that we can build on as a nation and as a Party as we head into the next four years.

The party said its platform committee voted to approve the platform on July 16, days before Biden bowed out of the race and endorsed Harris on July 21. As a result, the document repeatedly refers to Biden's second term and his administration's accomplishments. It mentions Harris' work as vice president but does not describe her candidacy or go into detail on her views on key issues.

Harris has talked generally about supporting the Biden administration's key goals, which are more or less endorsed in the platform as written.

The platform calls for restoring abortion rights nationwide, continuing to advance green energy initiatives that can create jobs and help slow climate change, capping low-income families' child care costs and urging Congress to approve a pathway to US citizenship for long-term people in the country illegally.

It also says Israel's right to defend itself is ironclad while endorsing the Biden administration's efforts to broker a lasting cease-fire deal that could suspend the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Harris laid out a string of new economic proposals last week but otherwise hasn't released a detailed list of her policy positions since taking over the top of the Democratic ticket. Her campaign aides have suggested she no longer adheres to some of the more liberal positions she took during her first run for president in 2020, including endorsing a ban on hydraulic fracturing.

In any event, candidates are not bound to adhere to their party's platform and often don't.