What VP Kamala Harris likely leading Democratic ticket means for women in California

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.

“It’s an excitement we haven’t felt in so long,” Evans, 32, said. “The fact that she’s a woman is so exciting; a woman of color is even more thrilling.”

While Evans said she’s still processing the news of the weekend, others in her organization are already looking ahead. One woman in the club has already booked a room in Washington, D.C., for the 2025 inauguration, she said.

Excitement for Harris can be attributed to myriad reasons.

She’s 59, significantly younger than the 81-year-old president who faced mounting pressure to exit the race as concerns about his age and mental competency raised. She’s also nearly two decades younger than former President Donald Trump, who secured the GOP nomination just last week.

She’s an experienced politician who has run successful campaigns for state attorney general and U.S. Senate before serving as the vice president for the past three-and-a-half years. And while her 2020 presidential campaign was unsuccessful, she was ultimately picked to be Biden’s running mate, becoming the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president.

But for local voters, she’s one of them, a Californian.

Harris is an Oakland native, born to immigrant parents, who resides in the L.A. neighborhood of Brentwood when she isn’t in Washington, D.C. She grew up in Bay Area politics, first winning a race as San Francisco’s district attorney some 20 years ago.

“She has already served as a role model for women in California,” said Linda Verraster, president of the Democratic Women of South Orange County. “Her experience goes a long way for promoting women and familes in California and the country as a whole.”

Harris at the top of the ticket “is symbolic of how powerful women in California are in national politics,” said Martha Johnson, an expert in women’s studies and gendered[ politics who teaches at Northeastern University Oakland. “We’ve had two of the most important female senators come from California (in Dianne Feinstein and Harris). And if you think about it, I don’t think any of this would have happened if Nancy Pelosi wasn’t so influential in Biden stepping down.”

“Harris is more demonstrating to us the power that California women are having in politics and speaks to the amount of influence the state has,” said Johnson.

Excitement aside, local activists and analysts note that we’ve been here – wondering if the nation is ready to elect the first woman to the White House – before.

But there are some stark differences between when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led the Democratic ticket in 2016 and now, they said.

“The stakes are higher,” said Evans. “As exciting as it was when Hillary was running, I don’t think we realized what an obstacle was ahead of us. We didn’t know what Trump was capable of, and also thought he had no chance of winning. It’s a completely different playing field now.”

Women, when it comes to executive office, are often held to different standards because there’s an implicit stereotype that the person in the role should embody what have generally been considered masculine traits, like competitiveness or toughness, Johnson said.

Harris’ campaign can use her background – her work as a prosecutor as well as her racial and ethnic background and gender – to paint her as someone new to lead the country, Johnson said. And while there’s still implicit and explicit racism and sexism in politics, Johnson said, her campaign might be able still to use gender to its advantage.

“It’s not 2016 anymore, and people know more about Trump now,” said Johnson. “Roe v. Wade hadn’t been overturned yet (when Clinton ran). We’ve seen a remarkable shift in women voters in terms of their alignment with the Democratic Party.”

Harris’ identities, and her ability to speak to them, are also tantamount, said Allison.

“Californians understand it. Shorthand, she’s a Black woman leader, but she is Black and Asian American,” said Allison. “It actually matters that there is space in her leadership for multiple identities. More than other places, I think that Californians appreciate that and appreciate the complexity of identities and that motivates people to vote.”

“She is pulling together a coalition that appeals to people of color, women of color, younger voters,” Allison continued. “She has a different coalition than even Biden. Back when Hillary Clinton ran, the Democratic Party wasn’t as clear as how much they need to support Black women and leaders.”

But a sitting president, endorsing his vice president who is a woman of color, to take over the top of the ticket, shows a change, Allison said.

“Something deep has shifted. It’s closing the door on Biden but opening an important door for Kamala Harris and other women of color who come behind her,” she said. “Our politics are evolving to becoming more realistic to who lives in our country.”

The country, Verraster said, is ready for a female president. But a woman from California, she said, now that’s just a bonus.