She told thousands of cheering supporters about her “unexpected journey” from a middle-class background to a barrier-breaking career as a prosecutor, senator and vice president, before setting out the threat posed by a Trump comeback.
Her remarks threaded the Heritage Foundation’s far-right “Project 2025” guidebook through her opponent’s growing authoritarian vision for his second term.
“In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious,” she said.
Kamala Harris accepts the Democratic nomination for president at the party’s convention in Chicago on August 22 (REUTERS)
“Imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails, and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency … not to improve your life, not to strengthen our national security, but to serve the only client he has ever had: himself.”
He tried to “throw away your votes” with his spurious legal campaign to overturn the 2020 election results, and “when he failed, he sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol, where they assaulted law enforcement officers,” Harris said.
The extraordinary candidacy of Harris — who galvanized the party around her within days of Biden ending his re-election campaign and endorsing his vice president — marks a major milestone for political representation, as the first Black woman and first Asian-American to lead a major political party.
Kamala Harris delivers closing remarks at the Democratic National Convention capping off a four-day celebration of her candidacy (AP)
The daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants could be the first woman elected president, eight years after Hillary Clinton made her own history as the first woman nominated by the party in 2016.
As Beyonce’s anthem Freedom boomed from the arena’s loudspeakers, Harris strode on stage in a black suit while the crowd — filled with women dressed all in white as an homage to the suffrage movement — waved signs bearing her first name, which they chanted over and over again.
Harris quieted the arena with just four words: “Let’s get to business.”
She thanked her husband Doug Emhoff, who wiped tears from his eyes, and her stepchildren Ella and Cole who were sat beside him.
Harris also wished the Second Gentleman, or “Dougie”, a happy anniversary — with Thursday marking 10 years of marriage for them.
Balloons are released after Kamala Harris appeared onstage the final day of the Democratic National Convention on August 22 (EPA) Doug Emhoff embraces Kamala Harris after she accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on August 22. Today is also their wedding anniversary (Getty Images)
She also thanked her running mate “coach” Tim Walz and President Joe Biden, the man who selected her as his running mate four years ago, for his “extraordinary record” and “inspiring” character.
Her vision for the administration is “charting a new way forward, to a future with a strong and growing middle class,” she said.
“Building that middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency,” she said. “Compare that to Donald Trump, because I think everyone here knows he doesn’t actually fight for the middle class. Instead he fights for himself and his billionaire friends.”
Kamala Harris celebrates with her great-nieces, Amara and Leela, after her Democratic nomination acceptance speech (REUTERS)
“At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating — so many innocent lives lost, desperate hungry people fleeing for safety,” she said.
She said her administration will press for “freedom, security and self-determination” for Palestinians.
On Republicans’ anti-abortion agenda, Harris said: “Simply put, they are out of their minds.”
With her voice raised over the roar of the crowd, Harris said she will “never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests,” noting threats from Iran and North Korea, who are “rooting for Trump.”
“They know he is easy to manipulate,” she said.
DNC crowd goes wild as Harris closes out the four-day convention (Getty Images)
Her Republican rival “won’t hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself,” she said.
Over four days, members of Harris’s family painted a joyful portrait of the vice president, from her husband’s gushing praise for his one-time blind date, to her sister, step-children, nieces and god-children sharing a more personal side of the woman now running for president.
Harris paid tribute to her mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who at 19 years old immigrated from India to the US, where she met Jamaica-born 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 multiracial, middle-class community in California, where her mother relied on neighbors who “instilled in us the values they personified: community, faith and the importance of treating others the way you wanted to be treated, with kindness, respect, and compassion.”
Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris, Tim Walz and his wife Gwen Walz on stage together (AP)
Her mother — a “brilliant, five-foot brown woman with an accent” — taught them “to never complain about injustice, but do something about it.”
“She also taught us: never do anything half-assed,” she said. “And that is a direct quote.”
In her own career, as a prosecutor, she added, “I’ve only had one client... 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 everyone whose story can only be written in the greatest nation on earth.”
At 9.44pm local time, Harris sent the capacity crowd to its feet, causing the arena to shake when she told attendees: “I accept your nomination to be president of the United States.”
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