Chicago
CNN
—
If there was one lesson Kamala Harris took from the 2004 Democratic National Convention, it was to fuel up for some long days.
“You definitely have to eat your Wheaties,” the then-39-year-old San Francisco district attorney told a crowd in Boston before heading off to what had become the week’s hottest ticket: a party celebrating the breakout keynote speaker, US Senate candidate Barack Obama of Illinois.
Now, 20 years later, Obama – who went from star of that convention to the nation’s first Black president in a short four years – will speak on behalf of Harris, the party’s newly minted standard-bearer, delivering a “forceful affirmation that Harris is the right leader for the moment,” an adviser said.
Arriving at this moment was indirect, painstaking and awkward for so many Democrats, considering the 2024 convention was long intended to be a celebration of President Joe Biden, Obama’s onetime vice president. Obama is among the party elders whose quiet maneuvering helped Biden realize that Democrats were headed to almost certain defeat if he stayed on the ticket.
Harris’s quick ascension to the top of the Democratic Party would have been unlikely without the swift endorsement of Biden – whose own presidency was made possible in no small part by Obama.
“She served him, and now he’s serving her and supporting her to be the president,” said Illinois Rep. Jonathan Jackson, who represents much of Chicago’s South Side. “He’s an honorable man, and history will be his best friend.”
Yet in many ways, Harris’ rise to presidential nominee amounts to a continuation of the arc that began with Obama on that summer evening in Boston two decades ago.
She is the first woman of color to become the nominee of a major American political party. And in only four weeks of rallying Democrats behind her, the energy fueling her candidacy and thunderous crowds chanting her name have drawn comparisons to Obama’s history-making 2008 run.
“This is a candidate who’s energized the party in a way that I haven’t seen, certainly since ’08,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker told CNN. “I’ve not felt this kind of energy and electricity at any convention other than the one for Barack Obama.”
For two barrier-breaking politicians – Obama, 63 and Harris, 59 – this year’s convention is a bookend 20 years in the making. As both climbed the Democratic ranks, they have intersected at various moments, each coming to represent, and embrace, an image of the party’s next generation, following in the footsteps of civil rights giants who came before them.
It was 2009 when journalist Gwen Ifill drew this connection between the two, saying on the “Late Show with David Letterman”: “They call her the female Barack Obama.”
They have never formally worked together, either in the Senate or in Obama’s administration, although Harris has written that Eric Holder, Obama’s first attorney general, asked if she’d be interested in replacing him when he stepped down.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times/Redux
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, speaks during a campaign event in Washington, DC, in October 2024.
From Kamala Harris/Facebook
A young Harris is seen with her mother, Shyamala, in this photo that was posted on Harris' Facebook page in March 2017. "My mother was born in India and came to the United States to study at UC Berkeley, where she eventually became an endocrinologist and breast-cancer researcher,"
Harris wrote. "She, and so many other strong women in my life, showed me the importance of community involvement and public service."
Courtesy Kamala Harris
Harris and her younger sister, Maya, pose for a Christmas photo in 1968.
From Kamala Harris/Facebook
Harris rides a carousel in this old photo
she posted to social media in 2015. Her name, Kamala, comes from the Sanskrit word for the lotus flower. Harris is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants and grew up attending both a Baptist church and a Hindu temple.
From Kamala Harris/Twitter
Harris tweeted this photo of her as a child after referencing it during a Democratic debate in June 2019. During the debate,
she confronted Joe Biden over his opposition many years ago to the federal government mandating busing to integrate schools. "There was a little girl in California who was bussed to school,"
she tweeted. "That little girl was me."
From Kamala Harris/Facebook
Harris got her bachelor's degree from Howard University in Washington, DC.
From Kamala Harris/Facebook
Harris graduates from law school in 1989. "My first grade teacher, Mrs. Wilson (left), came to cheer me on," Harris said. "My mom was pretty proud, too."
Paul Sakuma/AP
Harris is joined by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, left, and the Rev. Cecil Williams, center, for a San Francisco march celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. in January 2004. Harris was the city's district attorney from 2004 to 2011.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Harris speaks to supporters before a "No on K" news conference in October 2008. The San Francisco ballot measure Proposition K sought to stop enforcing laws against prostitution. It was voted down on election day.
Rich Pedroncelli/AP
Harris looks over seized guns following a news conference in Sacramento, California, in June 2011. Harris became California's attorney general in January 2011 and held that office until 2017. She was the first African American, the first woman and the first Asian American to become California's attorney general.
Sandy Huffaker/Corbis/Getty Images
Harris attends the Democratic Party's state convention in February 2012.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Harris watches California Gov. Jerry Brown sign copies of the California Homeowner Bill of Rights in July 2012.
Harry E. Walker/MCT/Getty Images
Harris speaks on the second night of the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
Rich Pedroncelli/AP
In May 2013, Harris and California Highway Patrol Commissioner Joe Farrow place a wreath honoring Highway Patrol officers who were killed in the line of duty.
Jeff Chiu/AP
Harris officiates the wedding of Kris Perry, left, and Sandy Stier in June 2013. Perry and Stier were married after a federal appeals court cleared the way for California to immediately resume issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
From Kamala Harris/Twitter
Harris is flanked by her husband, Douglas Emhoff, and her sister, Maya. Next to Maya Harris is Maya's daughter, Meena, and Maya's husband, Tony West.
Sandy Huffaker/Corbis/Getty Images
Harris receives a gift from supporters in January 2015 after she announced plans to run for the US Senate.
Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
Harris speaks during a news conference in February 2015.
Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images
Harris, as a new member of the Senate, participates in a re-enacted swearing-in with Vice President Joe Biden in January 2017. She is the first Indian American and the second African American woman to serve as a US senator.
Tom Williams/Getty Images
Harris talks with former US Sen. Bob Dole on Capitol Hill in January 2017.
Noam Galai/WireImage/Getty Images
Harris attends the Women's March on Washington in January 2017.
Zach Gibson/Getty Images
Harris speaks to Fatima and Yuleni Avelica, whose father was deported, before a news conference on Capitol Hill in March 2017.
Julia Rendleman/Getty Images
Harris greets a crowd at an event in Richmond, Virginia, in October 2017.
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images
In November 2017, Harris was among the lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee grilling Silicon Valley giants over the role that their platforms inadvertently played in Russia's meddling in US politics.
From Kamala Harris/Facebook
Harris and her husband attend a Golden State Warriors basketball game in May 2018.
Patrick T. Fallon/Getty Images
Harris attends a rally with, from left, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom, and Newsom's wife, Jennifer, in May 2018. Newsom won the election in November.
Melina Mara/Getty Images
Harris speaks with US Sen. Cory Booker during the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in September 2018.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Harris presses Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.
Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/AP
Harris arrives with staff for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in September 2018.
Faye Sadou/MediaPunch/AP
Harris reads from her children's book "Superheroes Are Everywhere" during a book signing in Los Angeles in January 2019. She also released a memoir, "The Truths We Hold: An American Journey."
Barbara Davidson/Getty Images
A person holds a Harris poster during the Women's March in Los Angeles in January 2019.
Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters
Harris holds her first presidential campaign rally in January 2019. She had announced her presidential bid a week earlier on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Her campaign signs carried the theme "Kamala Harris for the people" — the words that she spoke each time she rose in the courtroom as a prosecutor.
Edward M. Pioroda/CNN
Harris speaks during her CNN town-hall event, which was moderated by Jake Tapper in Iowa in January 2019.
Bebeto Matthews/Pool/Getty Images
Media members photograph Harris and the Rev. Al Sharpton as they have lunch at Sylvia's Restaurant in New York in February 2019.
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Harris confronts former Vice President Joe Biden, left, during the first Democratic debates in June 2019. Harris
went after Biden over his early career opposition to federally mandated busing.
Maddie McGarvey/The New York Times/Redux
Harris rides her campaign bus in Iowa in August 2019.
Adam Schultz/Biden for President
Harris and Biden greet each other at a Detroit high school as they attend a "Get Out the Vote" event in March 2020. Harris had dropped out of the presidential race a few months earlier, telling her supporters that the campaign didn't have the financial resources to continue.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Harris joins fellow Democrats from the House and Senate as they kneel in silence to honor George Floyd at the US Capitol in June 2020.
Adam Schultz/Biden for President
Biden calls Harris from his Delaware home to inform her that she was his choice for vice president.
Adam Schultz/Biden for President
Harris and Biden sign paperwork to officially get on the ballot in all 50 states.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Harris delivers a speech as she formally accepts the nomination at the
Democratic National Convention. "Let's fight with conviction," Harris said in her speech. "Let's fight with hope. Let's fight with confidence in ourselves and a commitment to each other. To the America we know is possible. The America we love."
Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Biden and Harris appear before supporters at the end of the Democratic National Convention.
Morry Gash/Pool/Getty Images
From Doug Emhoff/Twitter
Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, tweeted this photo of him and Harris that was taken in November 2020, just after she and Biden were projected to win the election. "So proud of you," Emhoff wrote.
Carolyn Kaster/AP
Harris arrives on stage to give a victory speech in Wilmington, Delaware.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times/Redux
Biden and Harris greet each other on the stage where they delivered their victory speeches.
Maddie McGarvey for CNN
Harris walks with her family to the White House on the final stretch of an abbreviated inaugural parade.
Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
Leah Millis/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Harris is given a tour near the demarcation line as she
visited the Demilitarized Zone dividing North and South Korea in September 2022. It was the last stop on her four-day trip to Asia, and it came a day after North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the waters off its east coast.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
addresses Congress at the US Capitol in December 2022 as Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hold up a Ukrainian national flag signed by troops from the besieged area of Bakhmut.
Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Biden and Harris pose with the Golden State Warriors as the NBA champions
visited the White House in January 2023. Harris said she had been a Warriors fan her "entire life."
Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Biden and Harris
meet with congressional leaders in the White House Oval Office in May 2023 to talk about a deal to raise the nation's borrowing limit and avoid a historic default. Joining Biden and Harris, from left, are Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images
US Sen. Laphonza Butler is sworn in by Harris at the US Capitol in October 2023. Harris and Butler are
two of only three Black women to have served as a US senator.
Matt Kelley/AP
Harris embraces Biden after a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, in March 2024.
The rare joint appearance highlighted the emphasis that the duo planned to place on health care for the upcoming election.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times/Pool/AP
Kevin Mohatt/Reuters
Harris speaks just outside of Milwaukee in
her first campaign rally, two days after Biden dropped out of the presidential race. She told supporters that she would spend the coming weeks "continuing to unite our party" ahead of August's Democratic National Convention and this fall's showdown with Donald Trump.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
Todd Heisler/The New York Times/Redux
Amara Ajagu watches Harris formally accept her party's presidential nomination at the
Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 2024.
Ajagu is one of Harris' young grandnieces. Harris is the first Black woman and first Asian American to lead a major-party ticket. If elected, she would be the first woman and Indian American president.
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Harris shakes hands with former President Donald Trump at the start of
their presidential debate in September 2024. Harris walked over to Trump and extended her hand. He accepted the handshake. It was the first time the two had met.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Harris hugs a child after speaking at a campaign event in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, in October 2024.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Harris is surprised by campaign staff with birthday decorations before Air Force Two departed from Atlanta on October 20. Harris had just turned 60.
Rebecca Wright/CNN
Harris participates in a
CNN town hall in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in October 2024. She faced questions from undecided and persuadable voters and made a final pitch to them.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times/Redux
Harris and former President Barack Obama walk and talk backstage before speaking at a campaign rally in Clarkston, Georgia, in October 2024.
Jim Bourg/Redux
Harris speaks from the Ellipse in Washington, DC, in October 2024. The Harris-Walz campaign billed the speech as her
"closing argument" one week before the election.
Chary Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images
Harris makes
a surprise appearance on "Saturday Night Live" in November 2024. “You got this,” Harris told her “SNL” alter ego, played by Maya Rudolph.
Austin Steele/CNN
Harris delivers
her concession speech after losing the election to Trump. “The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for," she told supporters at Howard University. "But hear me when I say: The light of America’s promise will always burn bright."
Obama played a key role in her election as California attorney general in 2010, endorsing her candidacy and arriving in Los Angeles for an October rally that helped boost her campaign. To a crowd of thousands, he described Harris as “a dear, dear friend of mine, so I want everybody to do right by her.”
Two years later, Harris delivered a brief speech at the Democratic convention in Charlotte, as Obama was fighting for reelection against Mitt Romney.
“We need to give him another four years. We need to move forward,” Harris told the crowd on the second night of the convention. “President Obama will fight for working families. He will fight to level the economic playing field and fight to give every American the same fair shot my family had.”
Near the end of his second term, Obama took the rare step of weighing in on California’s all-Democratic Senate race. He not only endorsed Harris, but filmed television ads with the message: “Kamala Harris will be a fearless fighter for the people of California every single day.”
Along the way, there have been moments of awkwardness. At a fundraiser in 2013, Obama deemed Harris the “best looking attorney general” in the country – an aside for which he would later call to apologize.
While Harris recalls seeing Obama at the Boston convention, aides to the former president say his first memory of meeting Harris came a few months later during a California fundraising event for his 2004 Senate race.
Four years later, as Obama was mounting a long-shot bid for the White House, Harris bucked many in her party to endorse him over then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, who had the early support of much of the Democratic establishment and many Black leaders.
Harris flew to Springfield, Illinois, to watch him announce his candidacy; a photo from that February day in 2007 shows a windswept Harris – then the district attorney in San Francisco – not onstage or in a VIP room, but among the crowd, waiting for Obama to walk past and shake her hand.
In the lead-up to the Iowa caucuses, she packed her black down jacket and boots and trekked to Des Moines right after Christmas to join the ranks of Obama’s army of volunteers.
“No job was too small for any of us,” Harris would later recall, “and we spent hours in freezing temperatures knocking on doors.”
Behind one of those doors at a senior-living facility was a well-dressed Black woman who – when Harris asked whether she planned to caucus for Obama – told her flatly: “They not gonna let him win.”
It was a moment Harris would later recall that changed her perspective.
“Her response suggested to me that, because she had seen and experienced significant disappointments in her life, she didn’t want to have hope about electing the first black President, only to suffer disappointment when he didn’t win,” she wrote years later.
On the evening of the caucuses, Harris was tasked with handing out pizza in the cold – and ran into the same woman, waiting in line wearing a fox stole.
Obama won Iowa, but the battle against Clinton was far from over. A few months later, Harris was dispatched to San Jose to pitch Obama to California activists and superdelegates at the party’s state convention in March.
She was virtually unknown on the national stage. The Clinton campaign’s surrogate at that gathering – the candidate’s husband, former President Bill Clinton – was decidedly not.
“Can you say ‘gulp’?” Harris joked before the crowd.
In her address, however, Harris tied her appearance on the same stage as a former president as in keeping with Obama’s candidacy.
“When you really think about it, hasn’t that been, from the beginning, what this campaign to elect Barack Obama has been about?” she asked. “Hasn’t it been about the audacity to do things unimaginable?”
Modeling after Obama – and Biden
When Harris launched her Democratic presidential campaign in 2019, she sought Obama’s counsel on her message and strategy. She had two meetings with him in Washington, aides said, and occasionally talked by phone. Obama offered similar advice to all candidates, including Biden, but offered no endorsement in the primary.
As she campaigned across Iowa in a crowded field of candidates, Harris often invoked Obama’s grassroots support that propelled him to victory over Clinton. She sought to model her campaign after his, even announcing an “all in on Iowa” strategy. But she ultimately struggled to connect with voters who were drawn to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, then-South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and other rivals.
“In good faith, I cannot tell you, my supporters and volunteers, that I have a path forward if I don’t believe I do,” Harris said in a video message on December 3, 2019, as she dropped out of the race a month before voting began.
Less than three months later, Biden roared from behind to seize the Democratic nomination. Harris quickly endorsed his candidacy and worked to smooth over animosity from their primary rivalry, derived in part from a debate-stage clash over busing and race. With Biden’s selection of Harris as his running mate, her trajectory to the White House resumed.
While the Democratic convention here this week represents a passing of the torch from Biden to Harris – far sooner than he envisioned – it also underscores how her candidacy is forever intertwined with Biden and Obama.
Carolyn Kaster/AP
Obama and President Joe Biden listen as Harris speaks at the White House on April 5, 2022, about the Affordable Care Act.
For whatever hard feelings Biden may harbor toward some longtime Democratic allies, his advisers insist that none are directed toward Harris and that he is committed to helping her win in November – an election that will still shape his legacy, too.
And for the next 77 days, Obama has made clear to Harris that he will do whatever she needs in her quest to become the nation’s 47th president.
His first task, aides said, comes Tuesday night at his convention speech, which he sees as an opportunity to make a case for Harris and Gov. Tim Walz, whom Obama admires and previously endorsed in his Minnesota races.
For this moment, Harris is not expected to be in the audience listening to Obama as she was two decades ago in Boston. She’ll be taking a quick detour to a rally in Wisconsin, trying to follow in the footsteps of both Obama and Biden in winning that critical battleground state.