TIME spoke with Harris in Wilmington, Del., on Dec. 7.
This excerpt has been edited for clarity and space
WHAT SHE WANTS TO DO FIRST
There’s a lot, to be honest. We’re
talking about a public-health
crisis that has killed hundreds
of thousands of people, has in-
fected tens of millions. We are
in the midst of an economic cri-
sis that’s being compared to the
Great Depression. A long over-
due reckoning on racial injustice.
And a climate crisis. We have to
be able to multi task, just like any
parent or any human being does.
ABOUT JOE BIDEN I can tell you
many things about him with ad-
miration and respect, including
that Joe asked me to be his run-
ning mate because he under-
stands that we have different
life experiences. But he also
knows—and I know, and it’s a
point of pride for me—that we
have an incredible amount of
shared experiences and values.
We were both raised in strong,
hardworking families. We’re
grounded in faith. We both have
spent our entire careers in pub-
lic service. I think that’s what
makes ours a very full and very
robust partnership.
GETTING THE CALL My team got a
call that the [former] Vice Presi-
dent would like to speak to you.
The anxiety, the tension was
high. What was this call gonna
be? Instead of going on as some
might with their involvement
with themselves, immediately
[Joe] said, “So, you want to do
this?” He just got right to the
point. That’s who Joe is. There’s
no pomp and circumstance with
him. He’s a straight shooter.
WHY BIDEN AND HARRIS WON The
country wanted a leader who
pledged their ability to heal and
to build a broad coalition. The
American people said, “Let’s
move forward. Let’s understand
that regardless of where you
live, your race, your ethnicity,
the language your grandmother
speaks, let’s move forward
knowing that the vast majority
of us have more in common
than what separates us.” It’s
about basic stuff. Can I get a
job? Are my kids gonna have the
opportunity for an education
that allows them to reach their
God-given capacity? I think
that’s what people want as we
move forward. And I think that’s
what the American people got.RESTORING ‘THE SOUL OF THE
NATION’ Our souls will be well
when people know that they
can feed their children. When
they know that they can have
a job that allows them to not
only pay the bills by the end of
the month, but to have a sense
of dignity, in terms of knowing
they’re providing for their
families and creating a pathway
for their future possibilities. The
soul of the nation is well when
people don’t have to worry
about whether they can afford
their medical bills, or whether
they’ll go bankrupt because they
have a family member that’s
sick. It’s these basic things that
should be considered human
rights, frankly, civil rights.ON BEING FIRST It is one of my
responsibilities. My mother
had many sayings. She would
say, “Kamala, you may be the
first to do many things; make
sure you’re not the last.” Which
is why [in my victory speech]
I said, “I will be the first, but
I will not be the last.” And
that’s about legacy, that’s about
creating a pathway, that’s about
leaving the door more open than
it was when you walked in.HARRIS, IN HER OWN WORDS
overstated,” says veteran Democratic admaker Jim
Margolis, who worked for Harris during the primary.
“That was an impossible task for Hillary Clinton in- In 2020, it was the name of the game.”
Biden’s political instincts were tested over and
over, starting with the summer’s racial-justice pro-
tests. Trump was using images of urban riots to as-
sociate his rivals with chaos and lawlessness, even
embracing vigilantes and far-right militias as sym-
bols of a racist pro-police “law and order” message.
Neither Biden nor Harris had been the first choice
of racial-justice organizers. To some activists on the
left, the idea of reconciliation smacked of weakness.
“You call it unity, I call it capitulation,” says Alicia
Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter and princi-
pal at the Black Futures Lab.
Biden sought a middle course. He knelt alongside
activists, proposed substantive reforms to address
structural racism and embraced the Black Lives
Matter mantra. But he rejected calls to “ defund the
police” and denounced violence and the destruction
of property. “I was cautioned by some really smart
people. You know, ‘Don’t go out and talk about ra-
cial inequity,” Biden says. “ ‘Don’t mention it be-
cause you’re gonna lose the suburbs.’ ” He ignored
them, believing the country had changed since Pres-
ident Richard Nixon’s coded appeals to the racial
consciousness of the “silent majority.” “I think the
American people are better and more decent than
that,” Biden says.
To knock off an incumbent President for just the
10th time in American history, Biden and Harris had
to revive the party’s fading strength with white vot-
ers without college degrees; energize its emerging
base of diverse, urban young voters; and motivate
the hordes of angry suburbanites, particularly college
graduates and women, who had fled the Trump-era
GOP. None of these constituencies would be enough
to carry the Electoral College on its own, and leaning
too far into any one of them risked alienating another.
Biden was perhaps the only Democratic candi-
date who could claw back some of the party’s lost
ground with the culturally conservative white vot-
ers who dominate the swing states of the Rust Belt.
Harris, meanwhile, brought a cultural competency
that attracted the next generation of Democrats, right
down to her footwear. When she stepped out of a
plane in Chuck Taylor sneakers, many voters saw
a politician who had literally walked miles in their
shoes. Harris’ candidacy was especially meaningful
to the Black women who form the backbone of the
Democratic Party, and whose turnout was critical in
flipping key states. “The electorate is continuing to
change, and that demographic change is the story of
this election,” says Henry Fernandez , CEO of the Afri-
can American Research Collaborative. “It’s reflected
in Kamala Harris.”
On election night, Biden was at home in