Vice President Harris secured a majority of the pledged delegates to the 2024 Democratic National Convention, Democratic Party officials announced Friday, officially making her the party’s presidential nominee and concluding an unprecedented process after the former Democratic standard-bearer dropped out less than two weeks ago.

The more than 4,000 convention delegates had until Monday to submit their ballots, but no other candidate qualified to challenge Harris, making her selection all but certain. Still, the formal nomination ascent of the first woman of color to lead a presidential ticket marks a milestone for a nation long riven by racial and gender issues.

“I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States,” Harris said on a call with supporters. “And I will tell you the tireless work of our delegates, our state leaders and staff has been pivotal in making this moment possible.”

The announcement was made moments before by Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, who noted that Harris crossed the threshold just a day after online balloting began. The vote is being held open through Monday.

“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,” Harrison said.

After President Biden abruptly bowed out of the race on July 21 and endorsed Harris, Democratic leaders scrambled to create a nomination process that did not rely on state primary contests, all of which Biden had already won. 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.

With top party officials seeking to rally the party to confront the candidacy of Donald Trump, no elected Democratic politician besides Harris announced their intention to seek those signatures. The candidates who did signal their intent to seek the nomination failed to obtain the required signatures.

On Tuesday, the Democratic National Committee said that 3,923 delegates had petitioned to put Harris on the ballot for the nomination, a large majority of the total delegate pool.

Party leaders decided months ago, when Biden was still expected to be the nominee, to use a virtual vote to finalize the nomination, rather than waiting for the party convention in Chicago on Aug. 19-22. They said the early nomination was needed because legal ambiguities in Ohio’s early deadlines meant that Biden could be kept off the ballot in that state.

Ohio ultimately amended its timeline for ballot qualification, but the Democrats stuck to their plans for a virtual nomination. Under the party’s rules, delegates do not need to vote on Harris’s vice-presidential selection.

Democratic convention planners are preparing a symbolic roll call for prime-time television coverage in Chicago, with representatives of each state offering their votes for Harris in a customized fashion.

Harris becomes just the second person of color in America’s nearly 250-year history to head a major presidential ticket, after Barack Obama in 2008. Harris is Black and Indian American, and Trump has recently attacked her identity and suggested that she formerly downplayed her Black heritage, an assertion for which there is no evidence.

Harris will also be the second female major-party nominee, after Hillary Clinton in 2016, when Clinton lost to Trump in a contest that stunned Democrats and upended the political landscape.

Amy B Wang and Maegan Vazquez contributed to this report.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris hired a battery of new senior advisers to her campaign this week, moving swiftly to replace lifetime loyalists of President Biden with Democratic campaign veterans, including multiple leaders of Barack Obama’s presidential bids, according to people briefed on the campaign shifts.

David Plouffe, a top strategist on both of Obama’s presidential campaigns, joins Harris as senior adviser for strategy and the states focused on winning the electoral college. Stephanie Cutter, the deputy campaign manager for Obama’s reelection who has been working in recent months with Harris, is the new senior adviser for strategy messaging. Mitch Stewart, a grass-roots organizing strategist behind both Obama wins, will become the senior adviser for battleground states. David Binder, who led Obama’s public opinion research operation and previously worked for Harris, will expand his role on the Harris campaign to lead the opinion research operation.

All of the new hires will report to campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon, another veteran of Obama’s two campaigns. She managed Biden’s 2020 campaign and built his 2024 operation from the White House before moving to Wilmington, Del., this year. Harris took control of Biden’s campaign as soon as Biden announced he would not seek reelection, an operation consisting of more than 1,300 employees and more than 130 offices. She asked O’Malley Dillon to remain in charge.

“This team is a reflection of the vice president. It brings in people who have worked for her a long time, people who have been with her for the last few years of the administration,” O’Malley Dillon said Friday. “This team represents the vice president and how she looks at building consensus and also driving toward one united front to defeat Trump.”

The specifics of the new hires were described by campaign officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal decisions. People involved said none of the current department heads would be pushed aside. Politico was the first to report Plouffe’s new role.

Harris comes to the campaign with her own brain trust who will take on more senior roles in the campaign. Sheila Nix, her campaign chief of staff, will remain in her role, as will Sergio Gonzales, her campaign strategist, and Jalisa Washington-Price and Megan Jones, her political advisers. Brian Fallon, a veteran of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign who has been working as Harris’s communications director, will be a senior communications adviser, traveling with the candidate. Shelby Cole, Harris’s 2020 digital strategist now at the Democratic National Committee, will also play an increased role.

“With 95 days to go, Vice President Harris is building on its powerhouse team that has already delivered historic grassroots support and record-breaking fundraising,” Nix said in a statement. “These seasoned and respected leaders are a part of Vice President Harris’ steadfast commitment to grow a team that will ensure we do everything possible to win this November.”

The new structure around Harris is expected to address the bifurcated nature of the Biden campaign leadership — with a campaign team in Wilmington that effectively answered to Biden’s inner circle in Washington, which advisers said sometimes slowed decision-making. The team operating out of Delaware will now be significantly larger at the top as it make the final push to Election Day, less than 100 days away.

Biden began planning his reelection bid in September 2022, with a clutch of senior White House advisers who have taken on reduced roles in Biden’s orbit. Anita Dunn, a senior White House aide, recently announced she would leave to advise a super PAC supporting Harris. Top Biden advisers Steve Ricchetti, Mike Donilon and Bruce Reed will all have smaller roles, as will Annie Tomasini and Anthony Bernal, top advisers to Biden and his wife, Jill.

One of the biggest holes to fill is the one left by Donilon, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign who oversaw message development, advertising and polling. Quentin Fulks, the principal deputy campaign manager for Harris, will take over leadership of the campaign’s advertising program with the current paid media team. The campaign is finalizing plans to bring on additional ad-makers.

In addition to increasing Binder’s role, the Harris campaign is also bringing on Terrance Woodbury of HIT Strategies, a specialist in Black voter opinion research. Other pollsters who were working for Biden will continue in their roles. Michael Tyler will continue as campaign communications director, and deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty will continue to oversee digital advertising, social media and grass-roots fundraising.

Former Housing and Urban Development secretary Marcia L. Fudge, who recently came on board as a campaign co-chair, will expand her portfolio to include outreach and strategy. Former congressman Cedric L. Richmond will continue to be a co-chair and Harris adviser. Brian Nelson, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the Treasury Department, is coming over to advise Harris on policy.

Jennifer Palmieri, a communications director in the Obama White House who played the same role for Clinton’s 2016 campaign, will be a senior adviser to Doug Emhoff, the second gentleman. Palmieri worked more recently as a co-host of the Showtime documentary series, “The Circus.”

Liz Allen, who serves as undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs at the State Department, will become the chief of staff to Harris’s running mate once that person is chosen in the coming days. Allen worked as Harris’s communications director when she was Biden’s running mate on the 2020 ticket. She worked for Biden when he was vice president and then served as deputy White House communications director at the end of Obama’s second term.

Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager, will remain in her role for Harris, with an expanded portfolio focused on Arizona and Nevada, where Democrats now say they have renewed hope of defeating Trump.

Cutter, who founded political consulting firm Precision Strategies with O’Malley Dillon, has been working with the vice president for months, helping her to prepare for interviews and do media training. White House visitor records show that Cutter was cleared into the White House by the Harris team five times in the first three months of this year. She has also been overseeing the planning for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later this month, reprising a role she played in 2020.

Cutter was previously a deputy campaign manager for Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, a deputy White House senior adviser to Obama, a former chief of staff to then-first lady Michelle Obama, and the communications director for John F. Kerry’s 2004 campaign, along with other roles, including a period as a host of the now-defunct CNN show “Crossfire.”

Plouffe also has a long relationship with the campaign. He advised the Biden campaign informally in 2022 when the campaign was first being put together. More recently, he has hosted a podcast about the 2024 race with Kellyanne Conway, a former adviser to Donald Trump who served as his 2016 campaign manager.

Plouffe is expected to end his consulting arrangement with the social media platform TikTok before joining the campaign.

The U.S. military is repositioning assets and moving additional defensive capabilities into the Middle East to defend against a potential attack on Israel by Iran, U.S. officials said.

The moves come after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah vowed to retaliate after the killing this week of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr.

Haniyeh was assassinated in a brazen attack at a residence in Tehran secured by the country’s vaunted Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Israel has not claimed responsibility, but U.S. officials privately acknowledge it was behind the killing. Washington was not apprised of the operation beforehand and had no role in it, officials have said.

Shukr was killed in an Israeli airstrike in a Beirut suburb in retaliation for an attack last weekend in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed several children while they played on a soccer field.

The events have brought the region closer to full-blown conflict than perhaps at any point since the Gaza war began 10 months ago with a bloody cross-border attack by Hamas.

Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and a group of militias in Iraq and Syria all receive weapons and training from Iran, part of a vast anti-Israel, anti-U.S. network Tehran has supported for years.

U.S. officials have revealed little about how they are preparing for the possibility of an attack, but the White House said Thursday night that President Biden had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and affirmed his commitment to Israeli security “against all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.”

“The President discussed efforts to support Israel’s defense against threats, including against ballistic missiles and drones, to include new defensive U.S. military deployments,” said a brief statement summarizing the two leaders’ call.

U.S. officials at both the Pentagon and White House declined to elaborate on what those defensive deployments entail, but the U.S. military has a broad array of aircraft, ballistic missile defenses and warships in the region.

On Friday, a U.S. official familiar with the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss military movements, said that the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and at least five other warships had relocated in the past two days from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, leaving them off Iran’s shores but moving in the direction of Israel if they sail west around Yemen toward the Red Sea.

Houthi militants in Yemen in recent months have launched numerous attacks on commercial vessels that use the vital shipping route, and on Israel itself, including a deadly drone attack that sneaked past Israeli air defenses and struck a building in Tel Aviv last month. Israel responded with airstrikes on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah.

The recent bloodshed follows a sprawling drone and missile attack by Iran on Israel in April in which the U.S. military intervened, taking down numerous drones and missiles as Israeli forces intercepted others. Iran launched that attack after an Israeli airstrike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria killed two Iranian generals and other Iranian military personnel.

The rising tensions raise the prospect that the Pentagon could respond again in similar fashion.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Biden after the president’s commitment to Netanyahu and will be ordering several moves in coming days, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Friday. Austin said the same to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Friday morning, she said.

Among the options available are fighter jets aboard the Theodore Roosevelt, and the naval destroyers nearby, including the USS Daniel Inouye, USS Russell, USS Cole, USS Laboon and USS Michael Murphy. The destroyer USS John S. McCain is also in the region, remaining in the Persian Gulf as the other American warships have moved, said the U.S. official familiar with the repositioning.

Five other U.S. warships are in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and could assist Israel if called upon. They include the USS Wasp, USS Oak Hill, USS New York, USS Bulkeley and USS Roosevelt.

The Bulkeley and the Roosevelt are destroyers with offensive and defensive ballistic missile capabilities, while the other three form the Wasp Amphibious Ready Group, a three-ship team of more than 4,000 U.S. Marines and sailors that includes Marine Corps fighter jets, an infantry battalion and other combat forces from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

The Pentagon also could reposition Air Force fighter jets closer to Israel to assist. In April, two F-15 fighter squadrons deployed nearby from the United States and Britain, shooting down numerous drones. Those movements were not disclosed in advance.

The U.S. Secret Service did not see warnings from local police about the gunman at former president Donald Trump’s campaign rally last month in part because they were stationed in separate command centers that hurt communication, the agency’s acting director said Friday.

Ronald Rowe Jr. said the agency takes full responsibility for the security failure at the rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13, and he pledged to make changes that could require new investments in personnel and equipment.

He vowed to hold officers accountable if an internal investigation concludes that they violated agency policies. The Secret Service’s probe is separate from the criminal investigation being led by the FBI.

“This was a mission failure. … I am working to make sure this failure never happens again,” Rowe said at a news conference Friday afternoon at the agency’s Washington headquarters. He called the assassination attempt — in which Trump was injured, one rallygoer was killed and two others were injured — a “dark day for our country.”

Rowe offered some new details about the security arrangements for the outdoor rally, saying there were no Secret Service personnel stationed in a unified command center set up by local law enforcement partners who were responsible for security outside the perimeter of the rally grounds.

Rather, the federal agency had established its own communications operation and did not access a message, moments before the shooting, from a local police officer warning of a man carrying a gun. That man was later identified as the shooter, Thomas M. Crooks, who fired multiple shots before being killed by a Secret Service countersniper.

Rowe said that the Secret Service relies on local law enforcement agencies to secure large events and that it was unusual for there to be two command centers.

There are multiple investigations seeking answers to questions about how a 20-year-old gunman managed to use an HVAC system to clamber atop an unsecured roof, traverse across multiple rooftops and then fire shots during a campaign rally.

Rowe became the agency’s acting director after Kimberly Cheatle, a veteran former agent, resigned as director last month — days after lawmakers from both parties lambasted her for not answering urgent questions about the security lapses at the rally.

Rowe testified at a joint Senate committee hearing Tuesday that he could not explain why local law enforcement had failed to spot the shooter on the roof.

He said the Butler rally was the first time the former president’s detail included a Secret Service countersniper. Local law enforcement has provided countersnipers at other rallies. He said Friday that the roof should have been secured and watched.

The FBI is leading the investigation into the shooting and has said it has not yet determined a possible motive.

The assassination attempt, the first on a U.S. leader in decades, has shaken public faith in the elite protective agency whose mission is “zero fail.” Lawmakers said Rowe provided more details, but some remained frustrated that he had not dismissed any of the agents who were directly involved.

The Secret Service said the Friday news conference was part of an effort to increase public transparency from an agency that is designed to keep a low profile.

Trump has said that he would hold more outdoor rallies and that the Secret Service has promised to expand his security.

Rowe told reporters Friday that law enforcement often flag suspicious people they spot at campaign events. At the July 13 rally, law enforcement received more than 100 calls for support, many of them about incidents related to the extreme hot weather that day. He said there were also calls about suspicious people other than Crooks.

The acting secret service director said law enforcement involved in protecting the Trump rally feel “down right now.”

“Every single person in the Secret Service,” Rowe said, “feels the weight of what happened.”

He said: “We will earn back your trust.”

Maria Sacchetti contributed to this report.

A federal judge in New York on Friday finalized the dismissal of Rudy Giuliani’s bankruptcy case, opening the door for creditors to pursue and potentially seize his assets. That includes two former Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation claim against him.

The decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane in the Southern District of New York comes two days after Giuliani and his creditors reached an agreement to resolve an estimated $350,000 in administrative fees in the case that were required to be paid before it could be closed.

A proposed order filed Wednesday stated that upon the judge’s approval and case dismissal, Giuliani agreed to transfer $100,000 to an escrow account controlled by his attorneys and satisfy the remainder of the fees with proceeds from the sale of one of his two properties — his New York apartment or his condo in Palm Beach, Fla.

In his order finalizing the dismissal, Lane approved terms of that settlement and formally closed the case. The order prohibits Giuliani from seeking bankruptcy protection again for “a period of one year from the dismissal effective date.”

A spokesman for Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The formal dismissal paves the way for the former election workers and other creditors to now pursue legal remedies to collect money owed to them by Giuliani, the former New York mayor. It also allows other pending lawsuits against him that had been frozen by the bankruptcy proceeding to resume, including defamation suits by the voting machine companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, and a sexual harassment and wage theft claim by former Giuliani associate Noelle Dunphy.

All are part of a committee of “unsecured creditors” that sought relief in the bankruptcy case.

Lane’s decision comes almost seven months after Giuliani sought bankruptcy protection after he was ordered to immediately pay millions in damages to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two Georgia women he falsely accused of helping to steal the 2020 presidential election while he was serving as former president Donald Trump’s personal attorney. Giuliani also faces criminal charges in Georgia and Arizona related to his alleged actions after the 2020 election.

Giuliani’s creditors accused him of using the bankruptcy case to stall litigation and collection efforts against him. The former mayor was criticized by the judge for his “uncooperative conduct” after he repeatedly filed inconsistent and incomplete financial statements that did not present a full picture of his cash and assets. Giuliani also failed to turn over financial information about his businesses and other holdings, as required by law.

“Transparency into Mr. Giuliani’s finances has proven to be an elusive goal,” Lane wrote in an order last month.

Citing suspicions that Giuliani’s stonewalling was an attempt to hide money, lawyers for the creditors hired Global Data Risk, a firm that includes former FBI and CIA officials, to look for hidden assets. They also suggested they could sue parties that Giuliani claims owe him money as part of their effort to recover debts — potentially including Trump.

In a February court hearing, Giuliani claimed Trump still owes him “about” $2 million in unpaid legal fees related to his work seeking to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss. He has suggested that debt is with the Trump campaign or the Republican National Committee — though in a Feb. 27 court filing, Giuliani noted a possible claim against Trump personally for unpaid legal fees.

It was not immediately clear if the creditors might still pursue that litigation. Attorneys for the creditors did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In court filings, Giuliani has listed roughly $153 million in debts to at least 20 people and businesses, including Freeman and Moss. A list of top creditors filed in February said Giuliani owes more than $3.7 million in unpaid legal fees to three law firms — though he is disputing some of those bills — and more than $1 million in state and federal taxes.

The former federal prosecutor has claimed about $11 million in assets — including an estimated $5.6 million New York apartment and his Palm Beach condo, which is valued at $3.5 million. While Giuliani has put his New York property on the market, he had resisted selling his Florida home, with one of his lawyers claiming that a sale could render the 80-year-old “homeless.” The settlement between Giuliani and his creditors suggested the Florida property could soon be for sale — though it was not yet publicly listed.

The settlement said a lien would be placed on both properties “as security” to make sure Giuliani pays fees owed to Global Data Risk and said the firm cannot seek to foreclose on or take other action related to either property for six months after the judge signs off on the agreement.

A financial disclosure report filed in June said Giuliani had less than $100,000 in the bank at the end of May and was funding his living expenses through a rapidly diminishing retirement account. But a lawyer for Freeman and Moss has repeatedly questioned the accuracy of his financial filings, accusing Giuliani of financial “shenanigans” and blowing through money without court authorization.

In recent weeks, Giuliani repeatedly shifted legal strategies in the case. In December, he sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which allows an individual to reorganize and file a plan to pay off debts. But on July 1, Giuliani changed course, asking a judge to reclassify his case under Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which would hand control of his personal and business finances to an outside trustee to liquidate. The request prompted immediate objections from some creditors who accused Giuliani of more delay tactics. He then abruptly joined with Freeman and Moss who had pressed the court to dismiss the case — which Lane agreed to do on July 12.

But Lane, who had not finalized the dismissal, later threatened to reverse that decision and schedule an evidentiary hearing where he would force Giuliani to testify under oath about his finances after he claimed he couldn’t pay fees in the case. The last-minute settlement averted that testimony.

Lane’s order Friday notes he will retain jurisdiction over the matter, including the approval of final administrative costs and “all matters arising from or related to the implementation, interpretation or enforcement” of its terms.