With the most important speech of his political career, Kamala Harris will accept the nomination as a candidate on Thursday night and will close the Democratic Convention in Chicago, amid thousands of blue, red and white balloons that will fall from the ceiling to celebrate the culmination of four days of this partisan meeting that energized the ruling party that dreams of retaining the White House on November 5.
Kamala spent much of the last few days (except for a couple of campaign events) locked away with a small group of close advisers at the Park Hyatt hotel, just a few blocks from Lake Michigan, refining the message he will give to the thousands of delegates from around the country, special guests and journalists who fill the United Center in this city.
But above all, the vice president will be targeting the millions of Americans who will follow her speech on prime-time television and who are still not familiar with her personal story and her proposals.
Although Harris has been vice president for more than three years, she jumped into the presidential candidacy in an unprecedented and dizzying way just a month ago with the resignation of Joe Biden, and his advisers They consider that his biography is not very well known. For the American who does not follow the ups and downs of politics closely, that is the vote she wants to win.
His life and his family
Although they have achieved a strong boost in the polls and Harris is ahead even in several key statesDemocrats are seeking to deepen their message to reach a broader electorate.
“The convention will provide the biggest stage yet for her to do what she’s been doing on the road: tell the story of how she’s the product of a middle-class family, who during her work as a prosecutor defended people, and thus contrast her vision for the future with the dark and dangerous plans of Donald Trump,” Brian Fallon, Harris’ spokesman, said in a statement.
Harris is expected to tell the story of growing up in a middle-class family in California as the daughter of immigrants (a Jamaican father who was an economics professor and a scientist mother of Indian origin), that she studied in predominantly white schools in her state during her childhood and adolescence and then moved to Washington as a student at Howard University, known as the “Harvard of African Americans”And he will also emphasize that to cover his expenses he works at a McDonald’s, like most Americans.
He will seek to contrast Trump, who was born into a wealthy New York family and who, according to Democrats, only thinks about himself and not the well-being of others.
Harris will also highlight her work as a prosecutor in California and is expected to remind voters of the types of cases she has worked on, including the prosecution of transnational gangs, sexual assault cases and misconduct in foreclosures. She will likely seek in the speech, as she has said in her campaign, to show that she is accustomed to dealing with the “kind of people like Trump,” who has been convicted of sexual assault and document forgery, among other criminal charges.
But Harris is also expected to tie her biography to her proposals, such as her recently announced plan to control food prices claiming that she understands the middle class in a way that a millionaire like Trump does not. At the same time, she will seek to distance herself from the label of “ultra-liberal” and “communist” that the Republican has placed on her, and will seek to present herself as a person who understands the suffering of the people. A tough prosecutor, but at the same time compassionate.
Harris will also highlight the theme of freedom, which was a symbol of this Convention, because they claim that Trump’s “extremist” agenda puts them in danger. In fact, the song that the campaign adopted is “Freedom” by Beyonce. Freedom to choose the person one loves, to decide whether to have children or not, to send children to school without fear of a shooter in the classroom, among others.
On Wednesday, his vice president Tim Walz said that “That is what this election is about: Freedom”“When Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to achieve a better life for oneself and the people one loves.”
Thus, the speech will crown a period that was a whirlwind for her during which he consolidated support in the Democratic Party behind his presidential bid, took over Biden’s campaign apparatus, selected Walz as his running mate and debuted a campaign message tailored to his background and experience.
Now, 75 days before the election, Democrats are hoping Harris can maintain her momentum in the polls and drive home the message that will help them sail strong into Nov. 5.