CHICAGO (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will tell voters that they have a chance as Americans to forge a “new path forward” in November. She plans to introduce herself to voters Thursday night and make her case against Republican Donald Trump as she accepts her party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention.
Harris’ speech in Chicago capped eight tumultuous weeks in American politics and demonstrated the stunning reversal of Democratic fortunes just 75 days before Election Day. Party leaders, who had publicly despaired of President Joe Biden’s candidacy after his disastrous debate against Trump, cheered both the historic nature of Harris’s candidacy and their hopes for this November.
“With this election, our nation has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move beyond the bitterness, cynicism and divisive struggles of the past,” Harris will say, according to excerpts released by her campaign team. “A chance to forge a new path forward. Not as members of a party or faction, but as Americans.”
Harris will be the first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to accept a major party’s presidential nomination, and if elected, she would be the first female U.S. president. And when she takes the stage, she will look out over a sea of female delegates and Democratic supporters wearing white – the color of women’s suffrage – the movement that culminated in 1920 when American women won the right to vote.
Just a month after Biden ended his re-election campaign and endorsed her as his successor on the Democratic ticket, Harris will try to seize her chance to present herself to voters on her own terms before an audience of millions.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz reacts during the Democratic National Convention, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Matt Rourke
Harris will draw on her background as a middle-class member to protect others as a prosecutor, contrasting her “optimistic” vision with Trump’s “dark” agenda and evoking a sense of patriotism, according to a campaign official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss preparations for his sensitive speech.
Harris delivered a brief speech to the convention on Monday, thanking Biden and praising his accomplishments as president. Another speech came on Tuesday, when the start of her rally in Milwaukee was streamed to the convention hall after Democrats confirmed their nomination with a state-by-state roll call.
Among those scheduled to speak to Harris on Thursday are Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, civil rights activist Al Sharpton and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
Sharpton emphasized the historic nature of Harris’ nomination, noting that 52 years ago he was a youth leader in former Rep. Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 Democratic primary for the White House. Chisholm died in 2005, but Sharpton drew applause when he declared, “I know she’s watching us tonight as a black woman stands up to accept the nomination to be President of the United States.”
Sharpton also introduced the now exonerated members of the Central Park Five case, who also had their say. They were wrongfully convicted of rape in New York City in 1989. Trump took out full-page newspaper ads at the time demanding the death penalty for the five – and continues to evade calls for an apology today.
Former representatives Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois who turned against his party to oppose Trump, and Gabby Giffords, the Arizona Democrat who was nearly killed in a mass murder in 2011, are also scheduled to give speeches. Singer Pink is also scheduled to perform.
Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, will be the first black woman and the first person of South Asian descent to accept the presidential nomination of a major party. She will speak a day after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, her running mate, thanked the packed Chicago arena for bringing “joy” to the election.
Despite Harris’s prominence as vice president, she spent four years in Biden’s shadow, leaving some Americans unclear about either her personal past or her political vision for the country.
Harris will talk about being raised primarily by her mother and the family renting a small apartment in San Francisco’s East Bay. She will also share an important part of her political origin story, when Wanda, her best friend from high school, confided in her that she was being abused by her stepfather and came to Harris.
“That’s one of the reasons I became a prosecutor. To protect people like Wanda,” Harris said.
Republicans are now competing to define Harris, accusing her of being a “communist” and a “dangerous liberal.” Trump has also targeted her race, while his running mate JD Vance has called her a “chameleon.”
Harris’ team highlighted her background in law enforcement, including her time as district attorney in San Francisco and attorney general in California. She was later elected to the U.S. Senate and sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.
Her campaign failed this year before a single vote was cast in the primaries, but Biden made her his running mate, catapulting her onto the national stage.
Although Harris initially struggled as vice president, her reputation grew when she became the leading abortion rights advocate in the administration after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Democrats used her anger over that decision to limit their losses in the last midterm elections.
When Biden stumbled at the debate with Trump in June, Harris defended him until he decided to drop out of the race. With his support, she was able to quickly unite the Democratic Party behind her candidacy, refocusing a presidential campaign that Trump seemed poised to win.
“We know what we are dealing with at this moment,” Harris said in Milwaukee this week. “And we must remember – like the generations of Americans before us who have led the fight for freedom – that the baton is now in our hands.”
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Associated Press writers Chris Megerian in Washington and JJ Cooper in Phoenix contributed.
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