The country is ready for a woman to lead it, local activists say, but a woman from Oakland and with a house in L.A., now that’s just a bonus.
Vice President Kamala Harris stood before a group of women at a lunch in Los Angeles earlier this year and said, “Black women are always leading us forward.”
She was addressing the L.A. Sentinel Women’s Luncheon at a luxury hotel in Century City, talking about how reproductive health care rights are under threat and noting the impact women have on the upcoming presidential election.
Fast forward just three months and President Joe Biden would exit the race, putting Harris, who has already broken significant gender and racial barriers in her career, in position to lead women another step forward: to the presidency.
Harris isn’t officially the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee — the process for just how the nominating process will play out next month is still a bit murky — but in just 24 hours, she quickly shored up support from leading Democratic lawmakers, delegates (including from Southern California) and donors. Team Harris announced Monday that it raised $81 million in the first 24 hours after Biden’s announcement, the greatest haul during a 24-hour span of any candidate ever, the campaign said.
That support, financial and otherwise, is indicative of voters’ excitement to elect the country’s first woman — the first Black woman and first person of Indian descent — to the White House, said Aimee Allison, the founder of She the People, a national organization that elevates the political role of women of color.
“People are completely thrilled and excited, and it feels tangible,” said Allison, who noted there are already several large organizing events for Harris being planned by California activists. “I haven’t seen this kind of energy and enthusiasm, this electricity, in a long time.”
“This is an incredibly exciting time for California and California women, many who were all in for Hillary Clinton (in 2016), wrote checks and organized communities to call into swing states, and then got their hearts broken,” she said. “We learned a lot from that experience, and one of the things we in California learned is: We have the resources here, and the will, to elevate a woman of color into the White House.”
Allison and other local Democratic activists are likening the excitement bubbling around Harris to that seen with Barack Obama’s successful White House bid in 2008.
Obama was the first president Nia Evans, vice chair of the Laguna Beach Democratic Club, cast a ballot for — and she feels that motivation is back with Harris.
