Harris Concedes Presidential Race to Trump After Losing Key States
Vice President Kamala Harris launched her presidential campaign three months ago. On Wednesday afternoon, her campaign came to an end, unable to overcome Donald Trump’s decisive victories in former Democratic strongholds.
Harris delivered her final campaign speech on the Yard at her alma mater, Howard University, to a crowd with tear-filled eyes. As she often did on the campaign trail, Harris entered to the sound of Beyoncé’s “Freedom.” This time, the lyrics “a winner don’t quit on themselves” resonated differently. As Harris spoke, the crowd’s energy was dampened by the stinging defeat.
“My heart is full today,” Harris told her supporters, many of whom had gathered in the same spot in front of Frederick Douglass Memorial Hall the night before, hoping for a different outcome. Someone in the crowd shouted, “We love you!” and Harris replied, “I love you back!” She went on to say that she is “full of love for our country and full of resolve.” She said she is “so proud” of the race she ran “and the way we ran it.”
Harris had hoped to deliver a victory speech, not a concession, but she said she was willing to accept the outcome, and she expected everyone else to do the same. Harris drew a contrast to Trump’s reaction to his defeat to Joe Biden in 2020. Trump refused to accept his loss and incited a violent riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn the results. “I know folks are feeling and experiencing a range of emotion right now—I get it,” Harris said with a small smile, acknowledging the emotional toll the campaign had taken. When she mentioned Trump had won the election, boos rippled through the crowd. “We must accept the results,” Harris said.
Harris emphasized that she and President Joe Biden will engage in a “peaceful transfer of power,” which she described as an act that “distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny.” In a pointed criticism of Trump’s public demands for loyalty from his staff, Harris said that Americans “owe loyalty not to a President or a party, but to the Constitution of the United States.”
Harris insisted that while the campaign was over, her work wasn’t done. “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign,” she said. She pledged to continue working to ensure women “have the freedom to make decisions about their own body” and fight for rule of law and equal justice.
She implored Americans to treat “one another with kindness and respect” and “use our strength to lift people up.”
She wanted children watching to know that “it is going to be ok.” She said that her campaign chant, “when we fight, we win,” is still true. But, she added, “sometimes the fight takes a while–that doesn’t mean we won’t win.”
The crowd listened intently but lacked the vibrant energy that had marked many of her rallies during her three-month campaign. She had filled arenas with people chanting “We’re not going back,” and crowds eager to hear her describe how, as an attorney general in California, she’d prosecuted predators, fraudsters, and cheaters, leading to her punchline: “I know Donald Trump’s type.”
Her central pitch to voters, that she’d “turn the page” on Trump and work to protect access to abortion and lower costs for middle-class families, didn’t resonate. Her message was overshadowed by Trump’s inflammatory descriptions of immigrants and criminals, his attacks on critics as the “enemy within,” and his insistence that only he could fix the country’s high prices and immigration challenges.
In parting, Harris said she wanted to leave the crowd with a reminder of an adage that says “Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.” Harris said she knows people feel the country is “entering a dark time” and she hopes that is not the case. “If it is, let us fill the sky with the light of a brilliant, brilliant billion of stars.”