Kamala Harris promised to chart a “new way forward” for the nation as she accepted the Democratic nomination for president Thursday, the final night of a star-studded and amped-up convention in Chicago. “With this election, our nation has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism, and divisive battles of the past,” the vice president told an arena crowd packed with enthusiastic supporters. “I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations. A president who leads and listens. Who is realistic, practical, and has common sense. And always fights for the American people.”
The standing-room-only crowd erupted when Harris took the United Center stage. Even those who spilled out into the concourse cheered wildly, with supporters waving KAMALA signs as they squeezed together around small televisions to watch the vice president deliver the biggest, most consequential speech of her career. “The future is always worth fighting for,” she said. “We are not going back.”
Harris—who became the first Black and South Asian woman to lead a major party ticket—touted her record as a prosecutor, U.S. senator, and vice president to Joe Biden, who dropped his candidacy only a month ago. She laid out a policy agenda centered around “freedom” and “common sense.” And she laced into Donald Trump, the former president who is running to return to power on an even more extreme policy program. “They are out of their minds,” she said of her Republican challengers.
It was a commanding, sweeping speech, ranging from domestic issues like abortion protections to the Israel-Hamas war that has weighed on her party. Harris notably drew a roar of applause when she vowed to ensure the “suffering in Gaza ends,” even as she emphasized Israel’s right to defend itself.
The DNC was, in part, a celebration of its past, with rousing speeches by the Obamas, the Clintons, and of course Biden, whose address on the convention’s opening night was something of a swan song for a presidency and a decades-long career in public office. But it also marked the beginning of a new chapter for the Democratic party: “I see a nation ready to move forward,” Harris said in her speech, “ready for the next step in the incredible journey that is America.”
Of course, the baton was not only being passed to Harris—it was, in many ways, being handed off to a new generation of Democratic talent, from rising stars like Representative Jasmine Crockett to those whose moment seemed to arrive this week in primetime speeches, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Maryland Governor Wes Moore. “I think for too long, you’ve seen the same people talking about the same issues,” Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski told me Thursday afternoon, before the vice president’s speech. “What we are seeing today is a diverse group of Democratic leaders who are actually talking about American values.”
“I have to explain to my colleagues what ‘coconut pilling’ is, and that ‘brat’ is a good thing,” California Congresswoman Sara Jacobs, the youngest member of Democratic leadership in the House, joked over coffee one morning here. “But I think that people are really excited to focus on the future and to think about the future,” she told me, “and to really turn the page on this dark chapter of American history where Donald Trump has been so ever-present.”
Indeed, the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month showcased a GOP unified behind Trump, but one still preoccupied with the “American carnage” of his 2016 run and the petty grievances he’s been grousing about since 2020. Democrats—after Biden stepped down—turned their focus on the future, putting the spotlight on young figures: “We have to remember that we are powerful,” State Representative Justin Pearson, one of the “Tennessee Three,” told a crowd at a youth voter engagement event at the Epiphany Center for the Arts on Chicago’s west side. “You don’t have to have fancy suits and fancy titles. All you have to do is use your voice, use your vote, use your time,” he added, noting that younger voters are now poised to exert extraordinary influence this cycle. “Our issues matter, what we say matters, and what we want to see happen in this country matters.” (To say the students in attendance gave the 29-year-old a standing ovation is an understatement; they jumped up to applaud as if they were ejected out of their seats.)
You could feel the generational shift beyond the official programming. At a “Hotties for Harris” party Tuesday night, young Democrats gabbed in front of a HALL OF HOTTIES (Harris, Biden, Walz, Stacey Abrams, Steve Kerr) and a HALL OF WEIRDOS (Trump, JD Vance, Vivek Ramaswamy) and danced in front of strobing coconut trees. It was like a being inside of a meme. “Politics should be accessible,” Jack Lobel, the 20-year-old national press secretary of Voters for Tomorrow, a youth advocacy organization, told me as the party dispersed. The work they’re doing is “serious,” the Columbia University undergrad told me, but it should also be “uplifting.”
“This is about love and unity,” Lobel told me.
Unity had been hard to come by for Democrats just a month ago, as Biden resisted calls from within his party to drop his nomination. His decision to ultimately do so—just days after the RNC—upended the race in Democrats’ favor, and has, for now, got the party suddenly pulling in the same direction. But can they keep it going?
It certainly looked like it inside the convention hall. But one of the biggest issues dividing Democrats—and alienating younger voters in particular—was looming right outside. Not far from the United Center, thousands of protesters demanded a ceasefire in Gaza—and, as Ta-Nehisi Coates reported here, uncommitted delegates pressed Harris and the Democrats to allow a Palestinian American to speak on stage at the convention. Ultimately, they wouldn’t get one.
One thing is certain: The November election, as Arizona Senator Mark Kelly warned on the convention stage Thursday, will be close. And the stakes—for the rights that will be threatened by Project 2025 to the democratic system Trump has sought to erode—are extraordinarily high.
“Donald Trump is an unserious man,” Harris said in her keynote Thursday. “But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.”
Democrats may only have 70-odd days to keep that from happening, but they wrapped their convention with all the momentum behind them. “We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of our world,” Harris said. “It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done: Guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country that we love.”
