Vice President Kamala Harris is preparing to make history Thursday night as she becomes the first Black woman and first Indian American to accept a major party presidential nomination.
The moment will be heavy with symbolism, with many women at the Democratic National Convention at Chicago’s United Center planning to wear white to commemorate the suffrage movement. But Harris has so far used this week’s convention to make a case beyond the history, emphasizing her personal biography, the party’s loosely defined “freedom” agenda and the case against returning former President Trump to the White House.
“We came here to Chicago with one mission in three parts,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House leader, told California’s delegates Thursday morning. “Celebrate Joe Biden, elevate Kamala Harris, eviscerate MAGA extremism.”
The contest is essentially a toss-up at this point, according to pollsters. But Harris’ elevation to the top of the ticket just over a month ago, after President Biden stepped aside, has given Democrats hope that they have a chance.
Harris, the vice president for four years, has sought to portray herself as a tough prosecutor who put away violent criminals when she was San Francisco’s district attorney and went after big banks when she was California’s attorney general.
Trump has sought to portray her as a San Francisco liberal and a failed “border czar,” a title Harris rejects because she was tasked by Biden to improve conditions for migrants in other countries and did not have direct control over the southern border.
But she has sought to defuse the issue by going after Trump for scuttling a bipartisan border enforcement deal this year and will likely do so again Thursday.
She has also blasted Trump over abortion rights, calling attention to his role in appointing Supreme Court justices who two years ago overturned Roe vs. Wade. Harris has led Democratic political efforts on the issue, which helped the party perform better than expected in the 2022 midterm elections and is again a large motivator for women voters who form the party’s backbone.
Harris is also expected to pitch the party’s economic agenda, which includes subsidies for first-time home buyers, anti-price gouging measures on groceries and expanded child tax credits. Though most recent economic indicators have been positive, polls show the economy is voters’ biggest concern, in large part because of inflation.