As his 100th birthday approaches, former President Jimmy Carter revealed that his milestone birthday is secondary to being able to vote for Democrat Kamala Harris against Republican Donald Trump in November’s 2024 presidential election.
According to a report published Saturday by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Carter told his son Chip this week, according to his grandson Jason Carter, “I’m only trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris.”
Carter turns 100 on October 1. The former president entered hospice care in February 2023.
Jason Carter also told the AJC that his grandfather has been “more alert and interested in politics and the war in Gaza” recently.
Newsweek emailed The Carter Center and the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library Saturday morning for comment.
In June, Jason Carter, the former president’s eldest grandson, said in an interview with Southern Living magazine that the 99-year-old is “experiencing the world as best he can” following the death of his wife Rosalynn last November.
Carter, the 39th president of the U.S. who served between 1977 and 1981, entered hospice care in February 2023 at his home in Plains, Georgia, following a series of hospital stays. Jimmy Carter has also experienced a number of health issues down the years, including recovering from cancer of the lung and brain.
The latest health update from Jason Carter arrived after he said the former president is “coming to the end” during a talk in Atlanta in May.
Speaking to Southern Living, Jason Carter said the family thought that the former president may only live for a short time once he entered hospice care, but it now appears “God had other plans.”
The Democrat, who was born on October 1, 1924, is America’s oldest living former president.
Carter, who lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan, went on to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
Last month, President Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and immediately threw his support behind his vice president. Since then, Harris has received endorsements from a host of Democrats, including former Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
Harris on Friday said she was “honored” after her campaign declared that she had secured enough votes from party delegates to become the Democratic presidential nominee.
The online voting process doesn’t end until Monday, but the campaign marked the moment when she crossed the threshold to have the majority of delegates’ votes.
Earlier on Friday, The Associated Press reported that the Harris campaign raised $310 million in the month of July alone, topping the $138.7 million number reported by former President Donald Trump‘s campaign.
The Harris campaign also stated on Friday that it begins the month of August with $377 million cash on hand, which they noted was the most for a presidential candidate at this moment in the election cycle. In comparison, the Trump campaign reported having $327 million to begin the month of August.
“I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States,” Harris said during a Democratic Party-sponsored livestream phone call after her campaign announced she had secured enough party delegate votes.
According to a national polling average aggregation website Race to the WH (White House), which collated 128 national polls, Harris is at 47 percent, compared to the former president’s 46.9 percent as of Friday. Trump had been leading until July 30 when the Democratic candidate surpassed him in the polling average for the first time this year.
Election analyst and statistician Nate Silver‘s prediction model also puts Harris ahead with a very marginal lead, taking 44.8 percent, compared to Trump’s 44.1 percent, as of Thursday.
However, both prediction models give Trump the projected Electoral College victory, with Race to the WH putting the Democratic candidate at 256 electoral votes to the GOP’s 275.
Silver’s model shows that Trump has a 54.9 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, while Harris’ chances stand at 44.6 percent.
Despite Trump’s lead, Race to the WH’s model shows that his Electoral College advantage has narrowed in the two weeks since Harris became the Democrats’ presumptive nominee. In June, he was predicted to win 302 Electoral College votes compared to the Democrats’ 236.
Update: 8/3/2024, 10:35 a.m.: This article has been updated with more information.
