Author: Yamiche Alcindor (NBC News)
CHICAGO (NBC News) – Vice President Kamala Harris is set to deliver what is arguably the biggest speech of her life Thursday night, when she will make history as the first Black woman and first Asian American person to accept a major party’s nomination for president.
Harris intends to focus her speech on three areas: sharing her personal and professional background, contrasting her vision for America with the one offered by former President Donald Trump and rooting her vision in “a deep and abiding sense of patriotism,” according to a campaign official, who, like others for this article, requested anonymity to share details about the remarks.
The speech — which will reach far beyond the thousands of Democrats gathered in Chicago to a national prime-time audience — will be one of her most significant opportunities to define herself since she took over the top of the ticket from President Joe Biden last month.
Harris has been crafting the speech over the past two weeks, making trips to Howard University in Washington, D.C. — her alma mater — for both debate preparation and speechwriting sessions, said two sources familiar with her preparations who requested anonymity to speak candidly.
Since she came to Chicago for the convention, which kicked off Monday, Harris has continued tweaking her speech with aides — though it was largely done by Tuesday morning, the sources said.
“She is going through that speech word for word, comma, colon, everything,” one of the people familiar with the speech preparations said.
That person also said Harris plans to dedicate the early part of her speech to praising Biden.
“She loves Joe Biden,” the source said. “She is grateful to him for his service, and she’s going to start by really opening up and thinking about what they have accomplished in their ticket together. There will be a lot of that.”
Harris plans to connect her policy proposals with her middle-class upbringing, including talking about plans for issues like taking on price gouging, lowering rent and helping first-time homebuyers, the two sources familiar with the speech said.
A former aide familiar with the speech preparations said Harris’ team has also been cautious about how they will incorporate talking about race and gender while understanding that it will be important to acknowledge the history-making position Harris is in. The speech will focus on why Harris is qualified to be president, detailing, among other areas, her time as a lawyer and the types of cases she handled.
“There is going to be an emphasis on her record, her accomplishments and her biography,” said the former aide familiar with the speech preparations. “They are really concerned that people will think that this is something that she has not earned, when she has earned this. … She is not there because she is Black. She is not there because she is a woman. … You want to run on accomplishment, qualifications and vision.”
Another former aide, who is now an outside adviser, added that Harris was conscious that as a Black and South Asian woman, she wants to be “a president for everyone.”
On a personal note, Harris also intends to talk about her mother.
“Her mother is so important in her life,” the person said. “Her mother told her you may be the first, but don’t be the last. So, there’s a responsibility. She learned about service and how you have to open the door for others.”
As in the past, a handful of aides have been working on the speech, including a policy aide, a political strategist and others. They include Adam Frankel, who was a speechwriter for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, and Megan Rooney, Harris’ head speechwriter, the former aide said.
The former aide, who is acting as an outside adviser, said that in 2019, Harris, a former senator and San Francisco district attorney, ran her campaign with the slogan “Kamala Harris for the People” in part because she wanted to welcome all Americans to her campaign and because that is what prosecutors say in court. But during that campaign, a number of political consultants counseled her not to use the phrase “for the people” too often; she took that advice and emphasized other themes along with it. Now, Harris is leaning back into her instincts and that phrasing.
“What this speech represents is her coming back to her own gut,” the person said, “and her own heart and her belief that this campaign is about the people.”
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