Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic Party nomination for president Thursday, telling a raucous crowd at Chicago’s United Center that she wants to rebuild the country’s middle class by creating an “opportunity economy.”
“We are charting a new way forward, to a future with a strong and growing middle class, because we know a strong middle class has always been critical to America’s success,” she said in a speech frequently interrupted by cheers and chants.
“We will create what I call an ‘opportunity economy,’” she said. “An opportunity economy where everyone has the chance to compete and a chance to succeed, whether you live in a rural area, small town or big city. And as president, I will bring together labor and workers and small business owners and entrepreneurs and American companies to create jobs to grow our economy and to lower the cost of everyday needs like health care and housing and groceries.”
Harris hasn't laid out many policy specifics since subbing into the presidential race for President Joe Biden outside of some economic proposals, including a ban on food price gouging, that she laid out last week. She largely stuck to broad themes in her acceptance speech, but she did pledge to sign border security legislation that was dropped by Republicans after Trump said passing it would hurt his election chances.
“I refuse to play politics with your security,” Harris said. “I will bring back the border security bill he killed and I will sign it into law.”
She added that the U.S. “can stay a proud nation of immigrants and have a secure border at the same time.”
She also used the speech to repeat her attack on Trump’s plan to impose across-the-board tariffs, which she referred to as “a national sales tax … that would raise prices on middle class families by almost $4,000 a year.”
Harris pledged to enact a middle-class tax cut, contrasting that with Trump.
Tax policy will be a major issue for Congress next year. Individual tax provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will expire at the end of 2025.
“He fights for himself and his billionaire friends, and he will give them another round of tax breaks that will add up to $5 trillion to the national debt," she said.
Addressing an issue that has been central to the Democrats’ message at the convention, she also vowed to sign a bill restoring a national right to abortion that the Supreme Court invalidated with its Dobbs decision in 2022.
Stressing the Democrats’ theme of “freedom,” Harris said U.S. residents should have the “freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water, and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis.”
Enthusiasm may not translate into electoral success, but the crowd at the four-day convention was particularly ready to party on Thursday, greeting Harris with a lengthy ovation when she took the stage.
Harris took the opportunity of her biggest appearance on the national stage to introduce herself to the American people, noting she and her sister, Maya, are products of the union between a Jamaican man and an Indian woman, the latter of whom traveled to the U.S. at the age of 19.
Harris's mother, Shyamala Gopalan, “was a biomedical scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, whose work in isolating and characterizing the progesterone receptor gene has stimulated advances in breast biology and oncology,” according to Wikipedia. She died in 2009 at age 70.
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Her father, Donald Harris, is an economist and professor emeritus at Stanford University, “known for applying post-Keynesian ideas to development economics,” according to Wikipedia.
Harris spoke shortly after former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., a fierce critic of Trump, told the raucous convention crowd that he had learned that "Democrats are just as patriotic" as Republicans and they love this country just as much as we do."
He called Trump "a weak man pretending to be strong" and said the Republican Party "is no longer conservative."
"It has switched its allegiance from the principles that gave it purpose, to a man whose only purpose is himself."
Harris’ acceptance speech also came on a day when administration officials in Chicago for the convention blasted Trump and talked up the vice president.
“We have a responsibility to take care of our planet,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a speech at the convention.
Former President Donald Trump “never learned that lesson. He called the climate crisis a hoax — he made it easier for big companies to poison our air and water. An American president must lead the world in tacking climate change.”
And Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, who attended the convention in his personal capacity, told a meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s Rural Council that the selection of Tim Walz for vice president represents an “important opportunity for us as Democrats, to be able to go out in rural places and … express our appreciation for what rural America does for us and for the entire country.”
“What it does is, it feeds us,” he said. “It provides virtually all the food we need. We are a food-secure nation, and as a result of that, we are a more secure nation. Other nations that rely on food from outside of their borders are less independent. Not us.”
Vilsack also said Harris has “a very full resume showing you that she is smart enough, experienced enough, tough enough, prepared to do the job, the toughest job in the world.
“The other guy, he's just cheated to stay on top,” he continued. “She's had a life of service. He's got a life of self-service. She's prosecuted crimes. He's committed them.”
