San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
In an election of firsts, Bay Area’s Harris set to change face of politics
WASHINGTON — California Sen. Kamala Harris’ election as vice president is more than a data point for the history books. It’s a longsought achievement for women and people of color that could forever change the face of politics.
Harris, 56, who was born in Oakland, is the first woman ever to be elected vice president or to be part of a winning presidential ticket, assuming that none of the Trump campaign’s litigation over the election process derails the results. She will also be the first Black person and first Asian American to be vice president.
That list of firsts is not just trivia fodder. Especially for women and women of color, Harris breaking down those longstanding barriers is transformative.
“There’s still racism and sexism in every place
you find yourself if you’re a Black woman,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, an Oakland Democrat who has backed Harris early and often in campaigns for more than a decade. “This is what African American women, women of color fight for every day, and that’s to be seen and to be heard. And I feel like now I’m seen and I’m heard in a way that I’ve never been seen and I’ve never been heard before.”
Harris reflected on the milestone of her election Saturday night, during a victory speech in Wilmington, Del. She said generations of women and people of color “paved the way for this moment.”
“While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last, because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities,” Harris said.
There’s one way in which the vice presidency won’t be new for Harris: She has been the first person like her to hold every office she has ever won. She was the first woman and person of color to serve as San Francisco district attorney. She was the first woman and first Black person to be attorney general of California. She was the first Black senator from California.
Harris has always had to deal with the “electability” question — whether she can persuade voters to elect her when none like her has succeeded before. She notes that she’s won all her races except the presidential campaign she embarked on and ended last year.
“There are always going to be doubters. That’s not new to me,” she told the Associated Press in 2019. When asked how she does it anyway, she replied: “You win.”
Harris tells young people that although they may be the only person who looks like them in a room, they are not alone: An entire community stands behind them in spirit.
“It is part of the way that I approach my work and always have,” Harris told the New York Times in June.
“I’ve been in that situation for most of my career, as only the second Black woman in the United States who was elected an attorney general of any state. I was the first Black woman elected district attorney in the state of California. So it’s not a new experience. Sadly, we are still making so many firsts.”
Harris was ultimately unsuccessful in breaking the glass ceiling with her presidential campaign. But women of color say Harris achieving this first — as vice presidentelect — is nevertheless important.
A’shanti Gholar, president of Emerge, an organization that trains Democratic women to run for office, said she thinks back to activist Fannie Lou Hamer, fighting to be seated at the 1964 Democratic National Convention as a Black delegate from Mississippi in a challenge to the state party’s allwhite delegation. That was the year Harris was born.
In a panel discussion about women in politics hosted by The Chronicle, Gholar said Harris delivering her acceptance speech as the nominee at this year’s Democratic convention fulfilled Hamer’s wish.
“To see Sen. Harris go from district attorney to attorney general to senator to now the VP nominee, with this, you can’t tell little Black girls that they can’t do anything they want, you can’t tell little Indian girls that they can’t do anything that they want,” Gholar said. “For women who are running for office, it shows them, too, that they can do it. They saw Sen. Harris do it.”
Harris’ ascension is also meaningful for the many women who felt a sense of loss when Hillary Clinton fell short in her 2016 bid to be the first woman elected president.
Clinton herself delivered a concession speech in 2008, after losing the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama, in which she saw a path to the White House that would be easier for women to travel after each groundbreaking candidacy.
“Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it ... filling us all with hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time,” Clinton said.
In this election cycle, Harris was unable to reach the White House with her own bid for president. She ended her campaign in December 2019 after being dogged by falling poll numbers, news reports of staff management issues and flagging fundraising.
ee attributed Harris’ shortfall in part to her being under greater scrutiny in the media as a woman of color, and to donors’ reluctance to
stand by such a candidate beyond the first signs of trouble.
“Those donors became very squeamish about their support, where for other candidates who’d been on the front page, they would have figured out a way to push back on the media, and then secondly, to keep donating to the campaign if they really believed in that individual,” Lee told The Chronicle in the “Chronicled: Who Is Kamala Harris” podcast.
Sen. Cory Booker, DN. J., a longtime friend of Harris who also ran for president, said it was the failure of her campaign that made clear to him how important it was that she had run.
“What really surprised me about the day that she dropped out was how many of the Black women in my life that were supporters of mine were reaching out to me who felt so personally harmed,” Booker said in an interview for the “Chronicled” podcast.
“It was a moment where I heard people openly questioning whether a Black woman in America could get a fair shake,” Booker said. “What do you have to do, like, you know, get elected by a state of 44 million people, multiple times in statewide elections, win and become a United States senator? I mean, all of these things, and they couldn’t even make it to Iowa,” where the first 2020 caucuses were held.
Harris has also been a greater target of online malice, much of it with a racist undertone. An analysis released last week concluded that Harris has been targeted by misinformation campaigns at a rate four times higher than Vice President Mike Pence or Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Clinton’s 2016 running mate, both of whom are white.
In her Associated Press interview last year, Harris said she was well aware of the difficulties of being a trailblazing candidate.
“When you break things, you get hurt, you bleed, you get cut,” Harris said. “When I made the decision to run, I fully appreciated that it will not be easy. But I know if I’m not on the stage, there’s a certain voice that will not be present on that stage.”
Gholar said those watching the campaign have seen the attacks that came Harris’ way, but have also seen how she weathered them with the support of other women.
In the same Chronicle event, Rep. Katie Porter, DIrvine, said that process is part of being a trailblazer.
“I’ve thought a lot about that word,” Porter said. “The literal meaning of it is important to reflect on. A trailblazer doesn’t just go first. It’s different than being the first. A trailblazer actually changes the path for those who follow, right? And so it’s an easier walk.”