'Underestimated at every turn', Kamala Harris reintroduces herself to America

CHICAGO – Vice President Kamala Harris sought to show the country who she was as she formally accepted the Democratic nomination on Thursday evening in a speech that was light on policy and focused almost exclusively on introducing herself to the country and defining her political opponent.

Her remarks began with an acknowledgement that the path that led her here was unexpected. She ended in a crescendo that drew on the advice of her late mother.

“Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are,” Harris said, delivering the most consequential speech of her political career.

For the Democratic Party, which sought an eleventh-hour replacement in Harris, there was no going back.

It was now up to her − to keep the White House from falling back into Republican hands. The vice president, who had once been considered a political liability for President Joe Biden, had succeeded in turning the narrative around her time in office on its head.

The fight in front of her would be difficult, she said. But the former California attorney general and U.S. senator has grown accustomed to it.

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“We were underestimated at every turn,” Harris reflected. “We were underestimated at every turn, but we never gave up.”

She ended the convention with the party mostly united behind her, save for diffused shouts of disapproval during remarks on Israel, and gave Democrats hungry for vision a preview of what was to come.

Deafening cheers filled the air as Harris told party activists she accepted their nomination for president. And if the election does not go her way, she committed to a peaceful transfer of power.

Her pledge as president: to lead and listen, practically and with common sense.

“With this election, our nation has a precious, fleeting opportunity,” she said, “to move past the bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles of the past.”

Her husband, Doug Emhoff, was the first to come on stage after her remarks, opening his arms wide to embrace Harris before giving her a smooch. Then came her running mate Tim Walz and his wife Gwen. The two couples moved to the front of the stage, grasped hands and lifted them high in the air to a roaring crowd.

Their immediate family, followed with Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff wiping tears from her eyes. The two women hugged as balloons rained down, and Harris’ grandnieces batted and kicked them.

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“We must be worthy of this moment. It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done,” Harris said near the end of her remarks.

As she has in recent days, as she and Walz have honed their message, she stressed that Americans have more in common than their beliefs can sometimes suggest, and politics need not be a zero-sum game.

When it came to policy, Harris mostly steered clear.

As advisers suggested ahead of the remarks, the speech had almost no surprises.

She repeated pledges to resolve the housing crisis and help the middle class through tax credits. One of the loudest applause lines came as she pledged to pass Democrats’ voting rights legislation.

On immigration, she tried to strike a balance, saying the nation could create a pathway to citizenship and secure its border without offering further details.

“With respect to the war in Gaza, President Biden and I are working around the clock, because now is the time to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire done,” she said.

Harris drew tepid cheers as she proclaimed her support for Israel. And some heckling that from a relatively small group of delegates.

She was drowned out by cheers, however, as she said that Palestinian people have a right to dignity, freedom and self-determination.

Her punchiest lines were reserved for drawing a contrast with Trump. He tried to throw away your votes, she said, and sicced an armed mob on the nation’s capital. He was found guilty of fraud and liable for sexual abuse, she charged. He said he'd set free insurrectionists and retaliate against journalists and his political opponents.

“Consider the power he will have,” she said of the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity. "Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”

She attacked Republicans’ position on abortion rights and declared, “Simply put, they are out of their minds.”

After weeks of soul searching on how to approach the former president, Harris and her campaign ultimately landed on a message that wasn’t that different from the one Biden was pushing before he dropped out of the election.

Unlike Trump, she said she would not cozy up to dictators. Democracy versus tyranny. “I know where I stand and I know where the United States belongs,” Harris said in a foreign policy specific section.

At the end of her remarks, 100,000 balloons dropped, with the help of 75 volunteers, 30 staff members and roughly a dozen stagehands, the convention said.

A rumored appearance of Beyonce didn’t materialize. Harris was the star of her own evening, with delegates chanting her name and giving her a standing ovation.

Biden was not present for the speech. But he called Harris ahead of time, the White House said.

In a tribute at the beginning of her speech Harris said she was filled with gratitude and that his record of service was inspiring.

But it was time for the party and the country to move on.

“We’re not going back,” Harris said as she led the crowd in chants of her new slogan.

Francesca Chambers is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY . Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @fran_chambers.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Underestimated at every turn', Kamala Harris reintroduces herself to America