When Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday, she made an effective pitch to the American people: This November, voters have a choice between sending the country back into a past of division and darkness, or pushing it into a future where people come together regardless of their differences — and she’s the candidate who will help voters find the way forward.
“I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations,” she said while reintroducing herself to the nation in a wide-ranging speech. “A president who leads — and listens. Who is realistic, practical, and has common sense. Who always fights for the American people. From the courthouse to the White House, that has been my life’s work.”
While Harris did not highlight new policy proposals, she spoke decisively about the issues that matter to her and how her life experiences have shaped her political stances. Here are six key takeaways from her acceptance speech.
Harris didn’t dwell on her history-making candidacy.
As the first Black woman and the first South Asian person to accept a major U.S. party’s nomination, Harris has already made history. And, if elected, she’d be the first woman president of the United States — finally breaking what Hillary Clinton has called “the hardest, highest glass-ceiling.” But while surrogates underscored the barrier-breaking nature of her candidacy throughout the week, Harris didn’t delve into this during her speech.
Instead, the vice-president highlighted the influence of her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who immigrated to the U.S. at age 19 and dreamed of curing breast cancer. The elder Harris died in 2009 and never got to see her daughter become California’s attorney general, the second Black woman to be elected U.S. senator, or the first woman vice-president. But Kamala Harris shared how being raised by a single mother in the Bay Area shaped her.
“The middle class is where I come from. My mother kept a strict budget. We lived within our means. Yet, we wanted for little and she expected us to make the most of the opportunities that were available to us and to be grateful for them,” she said. “Because, as she taught us, opportunity is not available to everyone. That’s why we will create what I call an opportunity economy, an opportunity economy where everyone has the chance to compete and a chance to succeed.”
She leaned into her record as a prosecutor.
Harris said her interest in the law stemmed from growing up “immersed in the ideals of the civil-rights movement.” But the moment she decided to become a prosecutor came in high school, when she learned that her best friend, Wanda, was being sexually abused by her stepfather. Harris invited her to come live at her home, which Wanda did. “This is one of the reasons I became a prosecutor: to protect people like Wanda, because I believe everyone has a right to safety, to dignity, and to justice,” she said.
She then reminded voters that as a prosecutor, she’s protected women, children, and elderly people who were victims of abuse; middle-class families who faced foreclosure at the hands of big banks; veterans and students who fell prey to for-profit colleges; and workers who were cheated out of their wages. Her record also extends to immigration: “I fought against the cartels who traffic in guns and drugs and human beings, who threaten the security of our border and the safety of our communities,” she said.
Harris drew a strong contrast with Trump.
While she called Trump an “unserious man,” Harris also stressed the threat he represents to democracy. She recalled his role in the January 6 insurrection and how he attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election. She also reminded the nation that Trump was convicted of 34 felony charges and that he has been found liable for committing sexual abuse.
She noted that Trump would give tax breaks to his billionaire friends rather than supporting middle-class families and cozy up to autocrats because, as Harris said, “he wants to be an autocrat himself.” He has promised to pardon insurrectionists, she said, and has called for prosecuting anyone he considers an enemy, including journalists and political opponents.
“Consider the power he will have, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court just ruled that he would be immune from criminal prosecution,” she said. “Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States — not to improve your life, not to strengthen our national security, but to serve the only client he has ever had: himself.”
She centered abortion rights and reproductive freedom.
Since Dobbs, Harris has been the White House’s most effective and outspoken advocate on the issue of reproductive rights as she traveled the nation meeting with doctors and patients affected by states’ abortion bans. The convention reflected this, giving space to people to share their abortion and fertility stories on the main stage every night. Harris also leaned into the issue during her speech, attacking Trump for not only appointing the three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade but for bragging about it ever since.
Harris stressed that, while she’d sign a measure into law to “restore reproductive freedom,” Trump and his anti-abortion allies are not content with just ending Roe. “He plans to create a national anti-abortion coordinator and force states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions. Simply put, they are out of their minds,” she said.
She put a spotlight on Project 2025.
While Trump has desperately attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, the far-right presidential-transition plan was highlighted on every night of the Democratic convention. Harris called out the project during her speech, underscoring the dystopian plans Trump’s campaign and administration alumni want him to implement, including eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, ending Head Start, and slashing Medicare funding. “Its sum total is to pull our country back to the past,” she said. “But America, we are not going back.”
Harris spoke extensively about the war in Gaza.
The DNC was heavily criticized for its lack of Palestinian speakers on the main stage as well as how rarely the war in Gaza was mentioned throughout the convention. In her speech, Harris called for a cease-fire and a hostage deal, saying that the White House is working “around the clock” to get it done. She also emphasized that she believes in Israel’s right to defend itself and said that, if she’s elected to office, she will ensure the country is able to do so.
“At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past ten months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking,” she added. “President Biden and I are working to end this war, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.”
