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DNC day 4: Kamala Harris accepts her party’s nomination, seeks ‘a new way forward’

The Democratic National Convention’s fourth and final night has concluded.
After a week of Democrats’ most prominent figures rallying the party faithful, Vice President Kamala Harris accepted her party’s nomination for president during a speech in which she offered her vision to the American people.
Harris was greeted by an ovation that spanned nearly 3 minutes before she was able to begin her speech.
“OK, let’s get to business,” Harris said after thunderous cheers drowned out her attempts to get started.
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“And happy anniversary, Dougie,” she said to husband Doug Emhoff, marking their 10th wedding anniversary.
Below find periodic updates of the final day of the convention:
Vice President Kamala Harris called on Americans to join her to “chart a new way forward” as she accepted the Democratic nomination on Thursday, arguing her personal story and prosecutorial background made her uniquely qualified to protect their interests and beat Republican Donald Trump.
“Our nation with this election has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism, and divisive battles of the past,” Harris said. “A chance to chart a new way forward. Not as members of any one party or faction, but as Americans.”
Harris’ address in Chicago caps a whirlwind eight weeks in American politics and manifests the stunning reversal of Democratic fortunes just 75 days until Election Day. Party leaders who had publicly despaired over President Joe Biden’s candidacy after his disastrous debate against Trump, were jubilant both at the historic nature of Harris’ candidacy and their buoyed hopes for this November.
The daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, Harris became the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to accept a major party’s presidential nomination. If elected, she would become the first female U.S. president.
“America, the path that led me here in recent weeks was no doubt unexpected. But I’m no stranger to unlikely journeys,” she said.
Harris talked about being raised primarily by her mother after her parents divorced in a small apartment in San Francisco’s East Bay, and being raised as well by friends and caregivers who were “family by love.” She also detailed a key part of her political origin story, when Wanda, her best friend from high school, confided in her that she was being abused by her stepfather and came to live with Harris’ family.
“That is one of the reasons I became a prosecutor. To protect people like Wanda,” Harris said.
Outlining her career as a prosecutor, state attorney general, senator and now vice president, Harris said, “My entire career I’ve only had one client: the people.” Meanwhile, she said Trump has only ever acted in the interests of “the only client he has ever had: himself.”
As she took the stage, she saw a sea of female delegates and Democratic supporters wearing white — the color of women’s suffrage — the movement that culminated with American women securing the right to vote in 1920.
A festive mood filled the United Center all evening, with a packed audience including running mate Tim Walz dancing and singing along to a mix of pop and classic rock. Two of Harris’ young grandnieces were brought onstage by actress Kerry Washington to remind the convention how to correctly pronounce her first name. At the girls’ direction, one side of the arena shouted “comma” and the other “la.”
Harris made a direct appeal to anti-Trump Republicans to put aside party labels and to support her over Trump, who denied his loss to Biden in the 2020 election, which inspired the Jan. 6 2021 Capitol insurrection.
“I know there are people of various political views watching tonight, and I want you to know I promise to be a president for all Americans,” Harris said. “I promise to be a president for all Americans to hold sacred America’s constitutional principles, fundamental principles, from the rule of law and fair elections to the peaceful transfer of power.”
The prosecutor in Harris surfaced during the speech when, in referring to Donald Trump, she referred several times to “his explicit intent” to free those who assaulted law enforcement officers at the Capitol, jail political opponents, and use the military against American citizens.
“Consider what he intends to do if we give him power again,” she added.
Harris said Trump’s prior willingness to violate the law indicates a willingness for a reckless second term if he’s elected again to the White House.
The former prosecutor listed Trump’s conviction in the New York fraud case, as well as the judgment against him in the E. Jean Carroll case.
“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 that he has ever had: himself,” Harris warned.
Loud applause greeted Harris’ plea to all across the aisle, saying she pledges to uphold the rule of law.
“I promise to be a president for all Americans, to hold sacred America’s constitutional principles, fundamental principles, from the rule of law and fair elections to the peaceful transfer of power,” she said.
Harris might be a well-known figure as vice president, but, on the biggest stage of her presidential campaign thus far, she’s still taking the opportunity to get into some biography.
After a speech by her sister, Maya, who made repeated references to their mother’s accomplishments, Harris — who doesn’t frequently mention her father — spoke about both of her parents, then her upbringing, primarily at the hands of her mother.
In an emotional tribute to her mother and father, Harris talked about the lessons she learned from both her parents who divorced when she was young. “My mother would stay, stay close,” she said. “But my father would say as he smiled, ‘Run Kamala! Run! Don’t be afraid. Don’t let anything stop you.’”
Harris drew a direct line between her current values and politics with her upbringing in a civil rights-oriented household. Harris noted that her parents met amid the civil rights movement and raised her with values of social justice.
“My mother was a 5-foot-tall, brown woman with an accent,” Harris said. “And as the eldest child … I saw how the world would sometimes treat her, but my mother never lost her cool,” Harris said.
“She taught us to never complain about injustice but to do something about it,” Harris said to cheers. “And she also told us to never do something ‘half-assed.’ And that is a direct quote,” Harris said.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger was the latest Republican to speak on the DNC stage in support of the Harris-Walz ticket.
Kinzinger retired from Congress after he criticized his party in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a bid to stop Joe Biden from becoming president. Kinzinger, at the invitation of Democrats, defied his leadership to join Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming as a member of the House committee investigating the attack.
“Some have questioned why I’ve taken the stand I have,” Kinzinger said. “The answer is simple, ladies and gentlemen. We must put country first. And tonight, as a Republican speaking before you, I’m putting our country first.”
He added, “I know Kamala Harris shares my allegiance to the rule of law, the Constitution and democracy.”
Kimberly Mata-Rubio, mother of 10-year-old Uvalde shooting victim Lexi Rubio, joined Democrats on their national stage Thursday in Chicago to tell the tragic story of how gun violence changed her family forever.
“Uvalde is national news,” said Mata-Rubio, recounting how her daughter and 18 other children were killed alongside two teachers during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in 2022. “Parents everywhere reach for their children. I reach out for the daughter I will never hold again.”
Read the story by staff writer Karen Brooks Harper here.
U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, told the Democratic National Convention that his opponent in November, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, and former President Donald Trump can be described with a phrase he once heard bandied about NFL locker rooms: “Me guys.”
“You know the type: talk a big game, only care about themselves, but you don’t want to be stuck with them at a barbecue,” Allred said Thursday night. “The truth is, America has never been about ‘me.’ As President Obama said, the single most powerful word in our democracy is the word ‘we.’”
Read the story by staff writer Joseph Morton here.
The Chicks – the Texas trio of Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer – were minus their banjos, fiddle and guitar as they sang in three-part harmony (with no audible effects) at the United Center.
They sang The Star-Spangled Banner in the same style at the 2020 convention, but that rendition was remote and prerecorded for the COVID-19-limited convention.
The Chicks have never been shy about getting into the political mix.
They dropped “Dixie” from the front of their name — timed to the release of March, March, a song about social justice — amid the nationwide George Floyd protests and a surge in Black Lives Matter sentiment.
In 2003 during the run-up to the Iraq War, Maines said on stage in London that they were ashamed that President George W. Bush was from Texas.
That led to a big backlash and exile from many country circles. They turned the negative attention into one of their biggest hits, 2006′s Not Ready to Make Nice.
He wasn’t on the schedule, but NBA star and Olympic gold medal winner Stephen Curry popped up on the big screens at the DNC to lend his support to Harris’ campaign.
Welcomed by big cheers from the thousands packed into the United Center for the convention’s closing night, Curry said his amped-up feeling of patriotism during the recent Olympics drove home for him that “Kamala Harris as president will bring that unity back.”
Curry, who plays for the Golden State Warriors, closed by saying, “The Oval Office would suit her well. In the words of Michelle Obama, do something. Go vote.”
Earlier this week, Curry’s Golden State coach Steve Kerr took the DNC stage to endorse Harris as well.
Rev. Al Sharpton was joined on the DNC stage by members of the Central Park Five — five men who were falsely accused of beating and raping a woman in a New York park when they were youths in the late 1980s. Antron McCray was the only member of the group not on stage.
At the time they were accused, Donald Trump took out ads in four New York newspapers calling for the state to reinstate the death penalty.
The boys were charged and convicted — and later exonerated after serving time in prison. But the ads paid for by Trump drew a lot of attention and helped build his celebrity.
“Our youth was stolen from us,” said Korey Wise, who blamed Trump for some of the harsh treatment they received from the public. “He spent $85,000 on an ad … calling for my execution.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts became the second and last woman to run against Harris in 2020. Now she’s at the convention that is nominating her. She was welcomed with a standing ovation and minutes-long cheers from the crowd while openly fighting back tears.
“Kamala Harris can’t be bought and she can’t be bossed around,” Warren said about her former Democratic rival. The two women served in the Senate together.
Morgan Freeman has become the next prominent Black actor to narrate a Kamala Harris campaign video played at the Democratic convention.
The 87-year-old Oscar winner lent his signature “voice of God” narration to a montage of moments from the vice president’s life that was played early in the program Thursday night, speaking lines like, “And then came a moment that changed Kamala Harris’ destiny, and lit the fire within.”
Actor Jeffrey Wright provided the narration for a similar video that played Monday.
If you think you’re seeing a lot of women wearing white tonight, you don’t need to adjust your television set.
There was a coordinated effort among female delegates and Democratic supporters to wear white at the United Center on Thursday afternoon, with security lines and convention floor seats filling up with women clad in white suits, dresses and other attire.
So when Harris takes the stage to accept the Democratic presidential nomination — becoming the first Black woman, and only the second woman overall, to do so — she will be looking across a stadium filled with the color of women’s suffrage, the movement that culminated with American women securing the right to vote in 1920.
The homage is a couture callback to other momentous political events in which women wearing white have played a role, particularly for other glass ceiling moments.
Hillary Clinton donned a white suit when she accepted the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nomination. And Geraldine Ferraro — the first female candidate for vice president — wore white when she accepted that nomination at Democrats’ 1984 convention.
Kate Gallego, mayor of Phoenix, said party officials had asked delegates to wear white Thursday night in honor of Harris’ nomination.
“A lot of women fought for us to get where we are tonight, and we wanted to be part of the celebration,” Gallego said. “So it’s a forward-looking gesture, but also remembering a lot of people fought hard for today.”
Uncommitted delegates who oppose U.S. support for Israeli military operations in Gaza said Thursday they still want Democrats to feature a Palestinian American speaker on stage.
Sabrene Odeh, an uncommitted delegate from Washington, said “it’s incredibly soul-crushing” to have their voices shut out of the convention.
She said party leadership gave them a “flat out no” Wednesday, leading the uncommitted delegates to spend the night outside the United Center in protest.
“The lowest bar we could set is asking for a Palestinian American to speak,” said Asma Mohammed, an uncommitted delegate from Minnesota.
The delegates represent voters from several states who chose “uncommitted” during primary votes to protest President Joe Biden’s approach to the war in Gaza. Layla Elabed, a leader of the movement, said the goal was “not another bomb.”
The bright spotlight of the Democratic National Convention will shine Thursday on U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, when he faces his largest audience yet to make his pitch for replacing U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
It’s an opportunity for Allred to reach beyond Texas, raising his national profile in a direct appeal to millions of Americans, all of them potential small-dollar donors who could help financially supercharge the closing stages of his campaign against Cruz.
Read the story by staff writer Joseph Morton here.
Among the politicians on tap are Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who was considered as a possible running mate for Harris, and his wife Gabby Giffords, a former representative who was nearly killed in a mass shooting in 2011.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a progressive leader, is scheduled to speak as well. So is former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican who became one of the few elected leaders of his party to oppose Donald Trump.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy will also deliver remarks. And Tennessee state lawmakers Justin Jones, Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson, the “Tennessee Three,” will speak. Jones and Pearson were expelled from the state Legislature for participating in a protest on gun control at the state Capitol.
Thursday isn’t just the biggest day of Kamala Harris’ political career as she accepts her historic presidential nomination. It’s also her 10th wedding anniversary with Doug Emhoff.
Harris and Emhoff met on a blind date in 2013. In a speech Tuesday night, Emhoff recalled introducing himself in a rambling voicemail.
“I remember I was trying to grab the words out of the air and just put them back in my mouth,” he said.
Emhoff added that “Kamala saved that voicemail and she makes me listen to it on every anniversary.”
At a Thursday morning Trump campaign news conference in Chicago, Vivek Ramaswamy blamed the media for what he characterized as lack of probative coverage of Harris’ policy proposals.
“Many covered for Joe Biden’s cognitive deficits in the same way that I worry the media is now covering for Kamala Harris’ policy deficits, and Americans are left holding the bag both times over,” he said.
Ramaswamy also listed celebrities participating in this week’s DNC, portraying them as a distraction from the issues at stake in this campaign.
“I see Oprah Winfrey. I see John Legend. I see Lil Jon,” Ramaswamy said. “Great — then still tell me what she stands for.”
The Associated Press contributed to these reports.

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