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Exactly one month to the day after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign, Kamala Harris made history herself when she accepted her party’s nomination to face Donald Trump in the 2024 race.
Harris delivered her acceptance speech to a full house at the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago on Thursday evening, capping off a four-day celebration in honor of her candidacy.
“Let us together write the next great chapter of the most extraordinary story of all time,” she said in her closing speech.
In her stirring speech, Harris told her thousands of cheering supporters about her “unexpected journey” from a middle-class background to a groundbreaking career as a prosecutor, senator and vice president before turning her attention to Trump.
Her remarks echoed the Heritage Foundation’s far-right “Project 2025” guide, which also reflected Trump’s increasingly authoritarian vision for his second term.
“In many ways, Donald Trump is an untrustworthy man. But the consequences of Donald Trump returning to the White House are extremely serious,” she said.
“Imagine Donald Trump without guardrails and how he would use the immense powers of the president … not to improve your life, not to strengthen our national security, but to serve the only client he has ever had: himself.”
With his baseless legal campaign to overturn the 2020 election results, he tried to “throw away your votes,” and “when he failed, he sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol, where they attacked police officers,” Harris said.
“He fanned the flames, and now he has been found guilty by a jury of ordinary Americans of a whole different set of crimes, of fraud and also of sexual abuse,” she said.
Harris’ extraordinary candidacy – which rallied the party within days of Biden ending his re-election campaign and endorsing his vice president – represents a major milestone for political representation, as she is the first Black woman and first Asian American to lead a major political party.
The daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants could be the first woman to be elected president, eight years after Hillary Clinton made history in 2016 as the first woman nominated by the party.
As an anthem by Beyonce Freedom blared from the arena’s speakers, Harris strode onto the stage in a black suit while the crowd – made up of women dressed all in white in homage to the women’s suffrage movement – waved signs with her first name, which they chanted over and over.
Harris silenced the arena with just four words: “Let’s get down to business.”
She thanked her husband, Doug Emhoff, who wiped tears from his eyes, and her stepchildren, Ella and Cole, who sat next to him.
Harris also wished the Second Gentleman, also known as “Dougie,” a happy anniversary – the couple celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary on Thursday.
She also thanked her “coach” Tim Walz and President Joe Biden, who named her his vice presidential candidate four years ago, for his “extraordinary achievements” and “inspiring” character.
Her vision for the government is to “chart a new path forward with a strong and growing middle class,” she said.
“Building that middle class is going to be a critical goal of my presidency,” she said. “Compare that to Donald Trump, because I think everyone here knows he’s not really fighting for the middle class. Instead, he’s fighting for himself and his billionaire friends.”
While pro-Palestinian advocates and “undecided” delegates urged her campaign and the DNC to allow a Palestinian American on stage, Harris reiterated her commitment to “Israel’s right to defend itself” to ensure that Israel “never again faces the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas inflicted on October 7.”
“At the same time, the events of the last ten months in Gaza are devastating: so many innocent people have died, so many desperate, hungry people are fleeing safety,” she said.
She said her government would work for “freedom, security and self-determination” for the Palestinians.
Regarding the Republicans’ anti-abortion agenda, Harris said: “To put it simply, they are crazy.”
Raising her voice above the roar of the crowd, Harris declared that she would “never hesitate to take any action necessary to defend our forces and our interests,” citing threats from Iran and North Korea, which “support Trump.”
“They know he is easily manipulated,” she said.
Her Republican rival “doesn’t want to hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself,” she said.
For four days, members of Harris’ family painted a joyful portrait of the vice president – from her husband’s effusive praise for his once-in-a-lifetime blind date to her sister, stepchildren, nieces and godchildren, who portrayed a more personal side of the woman now running for president.
Harris paid tribute to her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who emigrated from India to the United States at the age of 19, where she met Jamaican economics student Donald Harris at the University of California, Berkeley.
After the couple divorced, Shyamala, a cancer researcher, raised Kamala and her sister Maya.
Harris described her multi-ethnic, middle-class community in California, where her mother relied on neighbors who “instilled in us the values they embodied: community, faith, and the importance of treating others as you would like to be treated, with kindness, respect, and compassion.”
Her mother – a “brilliant, 5-foot-tall woman with brown skin and an accent” – taught her “never to complain about injustice, but to do something about it.”
“She also taught us: Never do anything half-heartedly,” she said. “And that’s a direct quote.”
In her own career as a prosecutor, “I’ve only had one client,” Harris said: “The people.”
She accepted her party’s nomination on behalf of “the people” and “every American, regardless of party, race, gender, or the language your grandmother speaks” and “on behalf of all whose history can only be written in the greatest nation on earth.”
At 9:44 p.m. local time, Harris brought the packed hall to its feet and rocked the arena as she told those present: “I accept your nomination for President of the United States.”
