The way Ms. Harris appeared in the midst of the Democratic Party’s crisis is similar to the way she appeared in the midst of the housing crisis in California many years ago.

The results of the 2024 US presidential election have been announced. Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has announced her acceptance of defeat.

The Democratic Party’s attempt to “change horses in midstream” to create a young opponent capable of countering Donald Trump has failed. The prospect of the first female black President of the United States has not been able to become a reality.

On July 21, President Joe Biden, after a disappointing debate performance against Mr. Trump, decided to withdraw from the race and nominate Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him. At that time, there were less than 4 months until the election.

Harris’s emergence into the Democratic Party’s crisis is similar to her emergence into the California housing crisis years ago. Only this time, she failed.

Kamala Harris was born in 1964 in Oakland, California, USA. Her parents are immigrants: her father, Donald Harris, is of African descent from Jamaica; and her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, immigrated to the US from Chennai, India in 1958.

In her autobiography The Truths We Hold, Ms. Harris wrote: “My mother knew that America would always see us as black women, and she would do everything she could to ensure that we would grow into confident, proud black women.”

Ms. Harris often talks about the lessons she learned from her mother.

“She was tough, courageous, and a champion of women’s health,” Harris said at the Democratic National Convention in August 2024. “She taught us never to complain about injustice, but to act to solve it.”

This influence was also evident during Harris’s time at Howard University in Washington, which she describes as one of the most formative experiences of her life.

The 1980s were a time of alarming racism and there was a lot of discussion about the issue.

“I found her to be a sharp thinker,” Ms. Rosario-Richardson, a former classmate of Ms. Harris’s, said of the vice president.

According to Ms. Rosario-Richardson, it was a time of racial segregation in America and there was a lot of discussion about this issue.

But Ms. Harris also blends easily into predominantly white communities. Ms. Harris said she has always felt comfortable with her identity and simply describes herself as an “American.”

Politicians shouldn’t have to categorize themselves into a certain group because of the color of their skin or where they come from, she told the Washington Post in 2019.

Kamala Harris rarely discusses the barriers she and other women, especially women of color, face. Instead, she refers to her mother’s advice: “Never complain about injustice, do something about it.”

That advice probably shaped her personality as she grew up, as well as her later career in the legal field, especially when she fought for ordinary Americans, the middle-class people from whom Harris claimed to come.

In the fall of 2011, the US housing market was in free fall.

California has been hit particularly hard. Hundreds of thousands of Californians have lost their homes in foreclosures, and millions are saddled with mortgages that are more than their homes are worth.

At the San Francisco Economic Development Authority (MEDA), scores of anxious homeowners come in every day for help. It’s a scene that’s repeated at similar nonprofits across California, which handles about a third of all foreclosures nationwide.

Jacqueline Marcelos was a mortgage counselor at MEDA at the time. Marcelos and her husband had themselves been victims of mortgage fraud, one of dozens of families who had been defrauded by a real estate brokerage. As counselors at MEDA, Marcelos and her colleagues knew that families seeking help likely had only weeks or months left to hold onto their homes.

“The bank never responds on time. They always ask you for more documents. And they continue to process the foreclosure even though your case is under review,” Marcelos said.

Kamala Harris, California’s new attorney general, took office at a time when policymakers are facing the worst economic crisis in decades and Californians are falling into poverty.

At that time, state attorneys general were gathering to negotiate with the five largest banks over their responsibility for the foreclosure crisis. California was not initially included in the group. On her first day on the job, Harris directed her staff to join the negotiations. But by the fall, she had taken the risk of withdrawing from the negotiations, believing that the settlement the banks were seeking would be bad for homeowners but would protect the banks from future investigations.

“When she left and refused the terms, Kamala was under enormous pressure to move forward and there were a lot of people pushing her to change her mind,” said Nathan Barankin, Harris’ chief of staff at the time.

According to Barankin, Harris felt there had not been a full investigation into what had happened and, more importantly, the consequences of the bank’s wrongdoing. That thinking led Harris to the conference room at MEDA on November 22, 2011, with Marcelos and other San Franciscans who had lost or were about to lose their homes.

“Then one day, Kamala Harris showed up.”

“I mean: I am who I am. I’m okay with that,” Harris said.

“I wanted to be here today to listen to the stories,” Harris told the group. “There are a lot of people who argue and talk about this, thinking about it spiritually, or perhaps politically, or academically. But the truth is, this is about each person sitting at this table and what you’ve been through.”

“We are talking about people who believe in the American Dream,” Harris said before listening to the people’s thoughts.

In January 2012, Harris demanded to speak directly to one of the key figures in the deal negotiations: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. In her autobiography, The Truths We Hold, Harris recounts how the call between her and Dimon turned into a heated argument. Dimon accused her of “trying to steal from my shareholders,” to which Harris responded: “Your shareholders? My shareholders are homeowners in California.”

Within two weeks of that phone call, Harris and other attorneys general reached a settlement with mortgage lenders.

In the end, California won $20 billion, much more than the original $2 billion to $4 billion, mostly for principal reduction for homeowners. The goal is to help people keep their homes and reduce their principal so they don’t have to pay more than their homes are worth.

Harris’ intervention also secured two other key provisions in the agreement, said Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Lawyers (NACA). The first was a reform of lending practices that would lay the groundwork for future rules and regulations in the mortgage industry. The second required banks to allow California to appoint its own independent monitor to ensure compliance with the agreement.

That monitor was Katie Porter, now a California state representative. Porter noted that the agreement was hundreds of pages long and very complex. When she called Porter to suggest the independent monitor position, Harris said that part of her role was to make sure that people who needed help could actually get it.

“She didn’t want it to be just empty promises,” Porter said. “She didn’t see her job as just holding press conferences to announce settlements, but actually getting the banks that were doing business illegally to step up and help the families that were harmed.”

Porter said that the way Ms. Harris handled the mortgage crisis partly outlined who she was as a politician and a leader.

“She’s not someone who’s going to say, ‘This is someone else’s problem, let the federal government deal with it, Congress is going to get involved sooner or later.’ This is someone who has stepped in and tried different ways to solve the problem.”

According to KQED (USA) writer Marisa Lagos, the victory in the confrontation with the banks in California can be considered a key milestone in the process of shaping Harris’ political career, as well as her image in the public eye. Harris herself also mentioned this story at the 2024 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

“As California Attorney General, I took on big banks, brought $20 billion to middle-class families facing foreclosure, and helped pass a homeowners’ bill of rights — one of the first of its kind in the country,” Harris told the audience.

But Kamala Harris would have had a hard time winning without a special connection. She is California’s attorney general, and Beau Biden holds the same role in Delaware. To help Californians, Harris needs the support of Beau Biden, who controls Wilmington, Delaware, the underground banking capital.

That partnership helped Harris emerge as one of the political leaders holding banks accountable for predatory behavior.

Beau Biden supported Harris until the end of his short life, when he died of illness at the age of 46. Five years later, the man Beau called “Pop” chose Harris as his running mate for the White House, forming what TIME magazine called one of the “strangest” partnerships in Democratic politics.

“I first met Kamala through my son, Beau,” Biden said when he introduced Harris in 2020.

“Beau has such great respect for Kamala and what Kamala does. I thought a lot about that when I made this decision. There is no one’s opinion I value more than Beau and I am proud to have Kamala by my side in this campaign.”

Four years later, Joe Biden is once again standing next to Kamala Harris to give her a shot at the presidency. It’s a moment that was forged from the Beau-Kamala “accidental alliance” of the early 2010s.

On the morning of July 21, Vice President Kamala Harris unexpectedly summoned a small group of advisers and closest allies to the American Planetarium – where she lives and works – to announce an important news: just hours ago, President Joe Biden told her that he would withdraw from the race for the White House.

At 1:46 p.m. that same day, when Mr. Biden officially announced his decision to the American people, Ms. Harris’s team immediately got to work. Time was of the essence. A long list of contacts for the most important Democrats had been prepared in advance. Ms. Harris immediately called influential people in the party.

Her team worked through the night. The vice president made 100 calls in 10 hours, and just 48 hours after Biden withdrew, Harris had “more than enough support” to secure the nomination.

“A perfect 48 hours,” said Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager in 2016.

In fact, the window of opportunity for Ms. Harris’s top rivals closed in just 27 minutes, according to the New York Times (NYT). That was the time between Mr. Biden announcing his withdrawal and when he endorsed her as his successor in a post on X.

Biden’s endorsement of Harris is seen as a key move to stave off a split in the Democratic Party over who will be the nominee. Many Democrats quickly endorsed Harris on July 21.

However, one prominent Democrat has yet to take a stand.

That was former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The 84-year-old politician made absolutely no mention of Ms. Harris in her first post on X about the US President dropping out of the race.

According to the revelation of Slate magazine (USA), this powerful woman is also the person who greatly influenced Mr. Biden to withdraw from the race for the White House, through private and public conversations.

By the morning of July 22, a series of American newspapers exploded with the headline “Nancy Pelosi finally endorses Kamala Harris after 24-hour delay”.

According to the Daily Beast, the former House Speaker’s immense influence quickly drew even more support for Harris. For example, 24 hours after Pelosi’s move, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries both voiced their support for Harris. Three days later, former President Barack Obama and his wife followed suit.

An official close to both politicians said that Mr. Biden’s support helped erase any potential conflict that might have existed between Ms. Harris and Ms. Pelosi so that they could support each other.

As of the end of July 22, Ms. Harris had received the support of 2,538 delegates, far exceeding the 1,976 needed to officially be nominated by the Democratic Party. However, it was only after the official vote results on the evening of August 20, within the framework of the Democratic Party Convention, that Ms. Harris was approved as the official presidential candidate of the Party.

Dubbed the “iron fist in a Gucci glove,” Pelosi’s support is paramount to Harris.

New York Post journalist Ryan King said that this year, whenever fundraising is mentioned, people remember a “shocking” number about Ms. Harris: The US Vice President raised more than $1 billion from her campaign committees and allies in less than 80 days since the start of the race for the White House.

This figure dwarfs the “$853 million” that Donald Trump raised during his entire political career through 2024, and far exceeds the fundraising pace under Biden.

“Previous presidential terms have seen candidates, including Mr. Trump (78) and Mr. Biden (81), surpass $1 billion in total money raised from campaigns and outside groups, but the breakneck pace achieved by Ms. Harris (59) is unprecedented,” Mr. King said.

According to Forbes magazine, two of the generous donors who opened their wallets and helped Ms. Harris reach this impressive $1 billion figure are former Meta CEO Sheryl Sandberg and “the richest woman in Silicon Valley” Laurene Powell Jobs.

Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs, is worth more than $11 billion and has quietly donated millions to a foundation supporting Harris. She has been Harris’s most important confidante for the past 20 years, providing advice and money while also helping to expand Harris’ public profile.

According to the NYT, Powell Jobs was also the one who indirectly influenced Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. After his failed debate in June, Powell Jobs expressed deep concerns to major Democratic donors about Biden’s chances of winning, then instructed her assistant to compile and send out polls to other donors. It was this information and data that prompted the donors to stop supporting Biden.

The NYT also said that Ms. Powell Jobs’s team sent other major donors a list of 17 organizations supporting Harris so they could donate, creating a solid financial base for the Vice President’s campaign.

Meanwhile, Sheryl Sandberg, CEO of Meta, and Ms. Harris began to become close in 2013, when Ms. Sandberg wrote to Ms. Harris looking for stories about powerful women who had demonstrated their mettle.

Ms. Harris’s long and friendly relationship with Ms. Sandberg and many other top tech executives, combined with her sensible policies, have made her Silicon Valley’s top choice for the White House.

It is undeniable that although the Democratic Party’s decision to “change horses in midstream” took place less than 4 months before the election, Ms. Harris’s appearance created new excitement for the party and the situation of the race in August was reversed.

It is assumed that if the election were held in August or early September, Ms. Harris would have a very good chance of winning.

Democratic leaders smiled at the thought of what it would mean to defeat Mr. Trump with the first female president — a woman of color, the child of two immigrants, a prosecutor and a candidate who talks about joy and smiles instead of frowns. Ms. Harris’s candidacy has inspired a rare sense of hope in the Democratic Party, CNN commented.

But a very short election campaign, without any specific policies to address the number one concern of the American people, which is the difficult economic situation and high inflation, makes it difficult for Ms. Harris to win this time.

CNN cited Ms. Harris’s answer in an interview with ABC’s The View to illustrate one of the biggest challenges for Ms. Harris’ campaign.

“If you could, what would you do differently than President Biden over the past four years?” co-host Sunny Hostin asked.

“Nothing has come to mind,” Ms. Harris replied.

Immediately, anxiety set in, replacing the late summer excitement or the September debate where virtually every political observer acknowledged that she had “the edge” over her opponent Donald Trump.

On June 28, 2024, President Biden ended his debate with Donald Trump with a disappointing result. Mr. Biden stumbled repeatedly, spoke weakly, and was constantly incoherent during the debate. This was one of the direct reasons leading to his decision to withdraw from the race with less than 4 months to go until Election Day.

And then Harris showed up. Just over a month later, she pulled off an unprecedented feat of securing enough endorsements before the Democratic convention and raising a huge amount of money. The way Harris emerged from the Biden debate crisis was similar to how she emerged from California’s housing crisis years ago.

Only this time she failed.

Kamala Harris’ performance in four short months, while bringing excitement and a significant confidence boost to her party, was not enough to convince voters to act on her ambitious message that she repeated over and over: “Vote for a new generation of leaders.”

Mr. Biden decided to withdraw from the presidential race at the age of 81. Mr. Trump, 78, was elected in 2024, which will also be his last term as president. It can be said that in the past 4 years, the dominance of “veteran” politicians shows that American politics is lacking a face that brings a new breeze.