‘I’m speaking.’ How Kamala Harris transformed as a politician and found her voice.

Time was when Vice President Kamala Harris was seen as just a well-connected young lawyer in San Francisco, invited to all the right parties.

Then through a friend, she reached out to Mark Buell, a prominent Democratic donor. Thus began Vice President Harris’ path to a career in politics. 

Mr. Buell, in an interview, recalls their first lunch meeting in 2002 to discuss her idea of running for city district attorney. He wasn’t sure at first if Ms. Harris had what it took.

“The more I listened to her, the more I recognized that, one, she’s extremely smart. And two, she’s got enormous energy,” Mr. Buell says, speaking by phone from San Francisco. “It was clear she had fire in the belly.” 

By the end of the lunch, Mr. Buell had offered to be Ms. Harris’ finance chair in what turned out to be a successful race, defeating the incumbent. He worked with her, showing her how to ask donors for money. And she did, smashing expectations for a novice fundraiser – and putting herself on the California political map. 

Today, Ms. Harris stands on the cusp of history, quite possibly the next president of the United States. If she succeeds, she would be the first woman to reach that height, and a woman of color to boot.

Harris’ DNC test: defining herself to the American public

The consecutive barn-burner speeches by former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention conveyed a sense that Ms. Harris is, in a way, the heir to the Obama movement. A sense of “hope and change,” the old Obama mantra, was in the air. Mrs. Obama didn’t mention President Joe Biden once.

Ms. Harris’ path to this moment, addressing the convention tonight as the party’s presidential nominee, hasn’t been easy. She stumbled early as vice president, including a botched, high-profile TV interview. Her habit of laughing awkwardly and uttering vague talking points set her up for unflattering memes. 

But when President Biden abruptly stepped down from his reelection bid a month ago, Ms. Harris seized the moment and hasn’t looked back. 

“She has found her voice,” says California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna.

Now Ms. Harris faces her biggest challenge yet: the battle to define herself with Americans – before GOP opponent Donald Trump and his campaign get there first. 

More than one-third of registered U.S. voters say they don’t know what Ms. Harris “stands for,” according to a CBS/YouGov poll taken last week. 

The “change” candidate? 

Ms. Harris is addressing this challenge in the gutsiest of ways, pitching herself as the “change” candidate, despite her nearly four years as Mr. Biden’s vice president. The Trump campaign, meanwhile, is trying to lash the unpopular Biden record around her neck like an albatross, starting with “Bidenflation” and the immigration crisis. She’s been dubbed the “border czar,” an unflattering twist on her early assignment to address the root causes of illegal migration. 

Paradoxically, Ms. Harris’ early stumbles as VP might save her in a way. She took a lower profile, as Mr. Biden and his inner circle – Washington fixtures for decades – seemed to distance themselves from her. A turning point came in June 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the ruling that guaranteed a nationwide right to abortion. Ms. Harris became the administration’s point person on reproductive rights. 

Now, with abortion rights a top issue for some demographics, including suburban women and young voters, and appearing on the ballot in several key states, Ms. Harris is well-positioned to make it a central focus. It’s a tricky issue for former President Trump. He boasts of appointing the justices who helped overturn Roe, while also trying to distance himself from unpopular Republican efforts to ban abortion nationwide. 

The issue is galvanizing for Democrats across the country, but that alone won’t win the election for Ms. Harris. She needs to be prepared to speak comfortably on an array of issues when she sits for media interviews and in her debate with Mr. Trump on Sept. 10, political analysts say. 

Likability and the sexism challenge

Ms. Harris also needs to be “likable,” as former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton discovered the hard way when she lost the 2016 race to Mr. Trump, albeit only in the Electoral College, analysts add. 

Not only would Ms. Harris be the first woman president, she is a woman of color – a twofer in the effort to break the ultimate glass ceiling. As such, her tricky task is to speak with the authority necessary to project presidential power while not being perceived by some voters as off-putting. 

“She has to tread this line,” says Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, noting the “trope of the angry Black woman.” 

In her debate four years ago against Vice President Mike Pence, Ms. Harris cut him off multiple times as he tried to interrupt her. “I’m speaking,” she said tersely, seeming to channel her past as a prosecutor.

She uses a similar line now on the campaign trail when pro-Palestinian protesters try to disrupt her events, and it plays well with the crowds. 

A larger question of sexism and misogyny also looms large over Ms. Harris’ historic run. Some say she may be a beneficiary of Mrs. Clinton’s prior campaign. 

“The advantage Harris has right now is that Hillary took a lot of incoming, and I think shamed a lot of people – and frankly a lot of people in the media – and taught them a bit about how to cover women in politics,” Ms. Walsh says.

Ms. Harris is also clearly benefitting from the relief many Democrats are feeling over her sudden rise to the top of the ticket – and the fact that she didn’t face the attacks of a competitive primary to get there. Her last presidential campaign, launched in 2019, began with great excitement at her opening rally, then fizzled amid infighting and a lack of clear political positioning. Her one bright spot was a tense exchange with Mr. Biden over race and busing.

Harris hones political skills – and joy

One supporter from her first presidential campaign – Jason Palmer – is here in Chicago as the candidate who beat Mr. Biden in March in the Democratic presidential caucuses in American Samoa. As soon as Mr. Biden dropped out of the race, Mr. Palmer released his delegates to Ms. Harris. 

Why did he support Ms. Harris back in 2019? 

“What stood out to me then is sort of what’s standing out to everybody else now,” Mr. Palmer says. “It’s that when she’s allowed to be herself, she’s kind of fun and joyful and interesting as a person.”

Mr. Palmer, an investor in startups, also appreciated the policy ideas in Ms. Harris’ 2009 book “Smart on Crime,” and is eager for her campaign to focus more on policy.

To those who have known Ms. Harris a long time, the steady improvement in her political skills has been visible – from her start as district attorney to becoming California attorney general, then U.S. senator, vice president, and now presidential nominee. 

“Her level of confidence about herself has just improved with every job she’s had since the beginning,” says Mr. Buell, the San Francisco donor, who has played a role in her other campaigns. “There’s a little less, almost no nervous laughter. She’s speaking slower, and in convincing ways. She’s her own self.”