CHICAGO– Vice-Chairman Kamala Harris close the Democratic National Convention Thursday night, when she accepts her party’s historic presidential bid and seizes one of her few remaining chances to appeal to an audience of millions.
Harris will lay out her vision for the country and continue her case against the Republican Party Donald Trumpcapping a hectic month that began when President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and endorsed her to succeed the Democratic candidates.
Harris has three goals for her speech, said a campaign aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive speech preparations. She will share her background, which she comes from a middle-class family to protect others as a prosecutor, contrast her “optimistic” vision with Trump’s “dark” agenda and invoke a sense of patriotism, the aide said.
Haris spoke briefly to the convention on Monday, where she thanked Biden and celebrated his record as president, and again on tuesdaywhen her rally in Milwaukee began and was broadcast into the convention hall after Democrats confirmed their nomination of her with a state-by-state slate of names.
Among those scheduled to speak for Harris on Thursday are Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, civil rights leader Al Sharpton and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. Singer Pink is also scheduled to perform.
Harris will be the first Black woman and the first person of South Asian descent to accept a major party’s presidential nomination. She will speak one day after Minnesota’s governor. Tim Walzher choice of her running mate, thanked the packed Chicago arena for “ bring joy “to the elections.
“We are all here tonight for one beautiful, simple reason: We love this country,” Walz said as thousands of delegates held up vertical placards reading “Coach Walz” in red, white and blue.
Many Americans had never heard of Walz until Harris made him her running mate, and the speech was a chance to introduce himself. He drew on his experiences as a football coach, his time in the National Guard and his account of his family’s fertility struggles — all parts of his biography that Republicans have questioned since Harris picked him.
It’s unclear whether the speech will attract new voters, but his background charmed Democratic supporters and helped Harris balance her coastal roots with a cultural representative of the Midwestern states whose voters she desperately needs this fall.
Gus Walz, the governor’s 17-year-old son, wept openly during the speech and wiped his eyes with tissues as he watched from the front row of the convention hall directly across from the governor.
Through his tears he said, “That’s my father.”
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Cooper reported from Chicago.