Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday night, becoming the new standard bearer of her party at a critical juncture of the 2024 campaign.
And while she did not explicitly mention the historic nature of her candidacy, the feat has been top of mind for Connecticut Democrats.
Throughout the week of the convention, Connecticut delegates have voiced their confidence that Harris can be the one to break the ultimate glass ceiling, while still acknowledging the competitive race with former President Donald Trump and noting the challenges that women still face in running for office.
If Harris wins in November, she would become the first woman to serve as president, as well as the first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent. But most of all, they believe her experience is what sets her apart and makes her most qualified to run.
“The thing about Kamala is, of course she’s a woman, she is a woman of color, but before all of that she has the experience. She is the most experienced candidate to be there, and that’s what it should boil down to,” said Dita Bhargava, a delegate from Greenwich who said she faced her own challenges as a candidate for state treasurer.
“And that’s what I see first,” she continued, “and then I see a woman, and then I see a person of color, and that’s when I get tear-jerked.”
It was a theme and point of pride that came up regularly on the sidelines of the convention. And for many of Connecticut’s delegates — who were once bound to Biden — they have long ties to the vice president.
Bhargava has been a longtime supporter of Harris, hosting a fundraiser at her Greenwich home in 2019. As a native of Toronto, Bhargava said she was connected to Harris’ aunt in Canada through a family friend. That led to meeting her sister, Maya, and the eventual fundraiser.
She formed a host committee with another 2024 delegate from Connecticut, Tina Duryea, and invited a group of people “who were on the fence to listen to her, and they were sold after that.”
Bhargava has a photo of Harris with her daughter Arya Pelletier, who was 10 years old at the time. The convention was an emotional full circle moment for the mother and daughter as a delegate and floor page, respectively.
Pelletier, who is now 15, has helped work the convention floor all week. She will not be able to cast a vote in this election, but she said she feels Harris represents her generation.
State Sen. Patricia Billie Miller of Stamford, the chair of the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus in the Connecticut General Assembly, said the nomination of Harris is a seminal moment for Black Americans, especially for the women who initially were fearful that the vice president might be disregarded as Biden stepped aside.
“You know, as a Black woman and as a Black child, I was always made to feel invisible and that I didn’t matter,” said Miller, who grew up in Columbia, S.C. “And now the country sees that we’re not invisible, that we can do it.”
Miller was elected to the state House in 2008 and the state Senate in 2020, but her inspiration for entering politics came during a trip to Senegal in 2005, visiting where enslaved people were held before The Middle Passage, the 80-day voyage in chains on schooners from West Africa to the Americas.
“But it seems like for Blacks, the more education, the more opportunities that we take, it seems like that glass gets thicker and thicker, and it’s harder to break through,” Miller said. “So I just get emotional when I think about the journey.”
Speaking to a sea of delegates wearing white in honor of women’s suffrage, Harris started with a nod to the unconventional moment in American politics when President Joe Biden decided to step aside with about 100 days to go. She entered the United Center to a sustained standing ovation that was only subdued when Harris calmed the crowd by saying, “Let’s get to business.”
“America, the path that led me here in recent weeks was no doubt unexpected,” Harris said after sharing her gratitude for President Joe Biden. “But I’m no stranger to unlikely journeys.”
Harris used much of her speech to tick through her extensive legal and political career, which began as a federal prosecutor in San Francisco. She was later elected as California attorney general before she moved to Washington to serve as a U.S. senator.
She made a brief run for president in 2020 in a crowded primary of almost two dozen candidates, including Biden. But Harris dropped out in late 2019 before voting began. Her campaign faced some blowback from progressives as well as criticisms over her muddled messaging on issues like health care.
But this campaign is much different for Harris. She ascended to the top of the ticket with an endorsement from Biden that helped her essentially lock up the nomination within days of his leaving the race. And instead of needing to focus heavily on base voters to get through a primary, her pitch will be tailored to swing voters and persuadable Republicans.
Her wide-ranging speech sought to strike a balance between calling for unity and a vow to serve all Americans, regardless of political party, while going forcefully after Trump and painting him as a threat to the country.
She also focused on themes including civil rights and patriotism. But the personal story of her family, especially her mother Shyamala, who immigrated to the U.S. from India when she was 19 years old, was a common thread through the 40-minute address.
“She taught a lesson Michelle [Obama] mentioned the other night. She taught us to never complain about injustice, but [to] do something about it. She also taught us — never do anything half-assed,” she said to laughter, adding, “and that’s a direct quote.”
Like Biden has throughout his campaign and presidency, Harris invoked the riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results, arguing that Trump encouraged them with the “explicit intent to set free violent extremists and assaulted those law enforcement officers.”
“Donald Trump is an unserious man, but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious,” Harris said.
Harris has yet to unveil much of her policy agenda, though she recently rolled out her economic plan. Her primetime address was light on the details but promised to address the housing shortage, give a tax cut to middle-class Americans and restore reproductive rights in a post-Roe world.
“He doesn’t actually fight for the middle class — instead, he fights for himself and his billionaire friends, and he will give them another round of tax breaks.”
She also name-checked a number of priorities of Connecticut’s congressional delegation: protecting Social Security and Medicare and reviving a bipartisan border bill negotiated by U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who mentioned the bill from the convention stage a night earlier.
Thursday night also featured a lengthy segment focused on gun violence prevention. Led by Lucy McBath, the congresswoman from Georgia whose teenage son was killed, gun violence survivors and advocates spoke of the emotional toll of losing loved ones.
That included Abbey Clements, who taught second grade at Sandy Hook Elementary School when a gunman entered the school and killed 20 students and six teachers in 2012.
“I carry that horrific day with me. They should still be here,” Clements said in an emotional speech.
Harris’ speech also brought some highly anticipated moments on politically fraught issues, such as Israel’s war in Gaza since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. Supporters of both Israel and Gaza have been waiting to hear from her on this issue and whether she would diverge from Biden’s approach.
After days of pro-Palestinian protests along the perimeter of the convention hall and throughout Chicago, Harris said the administration is still working on a ceasefire and hostage deal. She walked the line on the issue: vowing to remain an ardent defender of Israel while wanting peace in Gaza so “the Palestinian people can realize their right to self-determination.”
“I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on Oct. 7,” Harris said to loud applause.
“What has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. The scale of suffering is a heartbreaking,” she continued to more applause but also periodic shouts from the crowd of “Free Palestine.”
But the task of addressing Harris’ historic nomination came from Hillary Clinton, who came the closest to becoming the first female president but fell short in 2016.
The former secretary of state opened the convention on Monday with a nod to her unsuccessful bid. But she said she felt that the United States is “so close to breaking through once and for all.”
“I want to tell you what I see through all those cracks. I see freedom. I see the freedom to make our own decisions, our health, our lives, our love, our families. I see freedom from fear and intimidation … from chaos and corruption,” Clinton said on Monday. “On the other side of the glass ceiling is Kamala Harris raising her hand and taking the oath of office.”
For young women like Jennifer Croughwell, Clinton was the first to inspire her to get involved in politics and one day run for office.
Croughwell, a rising senior at Eastern Connecticut State University, was in middle school when Clinton made history as the first female presidential nominee of a major party.
“I really want to run for office someday, whether it’s municipal level or at a state level, but that’s just kind of a priority for me, and seeing that I can get to the highest form of office is so inspiring,” Croughwell said.
Other delegates from Connecticut have built their careers around promoting women for office and getting more involved in government and political spaces.
Sitting next to each other at Tuesday’s delegation breakfast, Joanne Sullivan of Windsor and Joyce Petteway of Waterbury recalled their long work for the National Federation of Democratic Women and its Connecticut chapter and the progress that has been made for women in politics.
One of the early focuses of the federation was to help women run to serve as delegates to the national conventions. Now in 2024, half of Connecticut’s delegates to the Chicago convention are women.
“In our country, the men were always the ones in front, going to political conventions. As a result, you have a lot of us now who are our age — we’re just skimming the surface because we’re going along with the party,” said Petteway, who is the president of CT Federation of Democratic Women.
“Her challenge will be to have every woman become knowledgeable, not only of running for office but about the whole democratic process,” she said.
Democrats, however, recall the challenges it took to get to this point and the ones that still lie ahead.
“As exciting as that is, I think a lot of us know that it took a lot to get there. There’s a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, a lot of hard work to make this happen, and we’re not there yet,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong told dozens of delegates from New England on Thursday morning.
“She doesn’t get here without Hillary,” he said in an interview after the breakfast. “When I talk about pain and suffering, Hillary had to do that for her and suffer. It means a lot to a lot of us.”
The signature balloon drop capped off Harris’ acceptance speech and four days of a high-energy convention. Some Connecticut delegates could not help but think about that metaphorical glass ceiling.
“I was in my seat and I’m looking up and I saw all the balloons up there, because I know when they come down on Thursday night,” Sullivan observed from the convention hall earlier this week. “I’m thinking that it should be glass falling, because we’re going to do it this time.”
Staff Writer Mark Pazniokas contributed to this report.
This story was originally published by the Connecticut Mirror Aug. 23, 2024.
