I still remember 2008, when as a college student in Boulder, Colorado, Barack Obama accepted his party’s nomination just miles away in Denver. The public’s fervor was so large at the time that the Democrats had to move Obama’s acceptance speech from the city’s basketball/hockey arena to the nearby football stadium, which could fit three times as many people.
Certainly, 2016 felt monumental with Hillary Clinton’s historic run as the first woman to secure a major political party’s presidential nomination and Donald Trump’s historic run as an unexpected candidate. But somehow last night brought the feel of 2008-era scale in the public’s energy (even though Beyoncé didn’t end up making a rumored visit).
On Thursday, in the heart of America’s Midwest in Chicago, Vice President Kamala Harris made history — yet again — by accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States. She is the second woman, after Clinton of course, to secure a major political party’s nomination for the top spot. But Harris is the first Black and South Asian woman to do so.
Political figures and families continue to increasingly reflect the diversity of the American people. Either way, the election results go, we will have the first President of the United States with Black and South Asian roots, or a Second Lady of the United States with South Asian roots (Indian American Usha Vance is the wife of Senator JD Vance, who is Donald Trump’s Republican running mate).
With Election Day about 74 days away, below is a roundup of things to watch as the election shifts into the heat of the season and more Americans begin to get to know Harris at a new level of scrutiny.
This article was first published in redwhiteandbrown.
