Spouses of presidential nominees who give speeches at political conventions have one job — to humanize the person running for office with poignant and relatable anecdotes that highlight their humor, compassion, and devotion to family.
Doug Emhoff understood the assignment. At the Democratic National Convention, Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband used levity, self-effacement, and affection to introduce the crowd and viewers at home to the woman he knows.
After pointing to his “big beautiful blended family up there,” which included his parents, ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff, and their two children, Cole and Ella, who call Harris “Momala,” Emhoff said, “America, you have to decide who to trust with your family’s future. I trusted Kamala with our family’s future — it was the best decision I ever made.”
He said to Harris (who was campaigning in Wisconsin), “I’m so proud at how you’re stepping up for all of us.” Then, returning to address the convention crowd, he added, “But that’s who she is.”
Emhoff is also earning deserved praise for who he is — the affable, slightly goofy, and fiercely supportive husband of the woman who could be this nation’s next president.
Since Joe Biden chose Harris as his running mate in 2020, Emhoff has settled well into his historic role as the nation’s first second gentleman. Countless first and second ladies have done what history has required of them — to stand by their man and draw no attention to themselves. (Some, like Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton, and Michelle Obama, have bucked these narrow expectations.)
But many wondered whether a man could adjust to being in the expanding shadow of his wife.
That Emhoff, who left his career as a successful lawyer, has done so effortlessly should be uplifting and affirming to both women and men. (A man isn’t expected to forgo his own career ambitions for his wife’s.) He is a regular guy who has a fantasy football team named after the band Nirvana. He was once employee of the month at McDonald’s. He’s had the same friends since the 1990s.
Most important, Emhoff comes across as a man who is secure enough in his masculinity to support Harris without rancor.
At a time when far-right Republicans and Project 2025 want to shove archaic gender roles down this nation’s throat, Emhoff’s approach is refreshing and necessary.
What also works for Emhoff is his willingness to poke fun at himself. In his speech he recalled the awkward first phone message he left for Harris after a mutual friend suggested that they should meet. Harris saved that message, he said, and plays it every year on their anniversary.
In a stunning juxtaposition of their personal and political lives, Harris and Emhoff celebrated their 10th anniversary Thursday, the same day as Harris’s acceptance speech at the DNC.
In his video introduction to his father, Cole Emhoff said, “We might not look like other families in the White House” — but the Harris-Emhoff family does look like millions of families nationwide. According to the Pew Research Center, 42 percent of respondents said they have a step-relative such as a parent, child, or sibling. About 13 percent of respondents said that they have at least one stepchild.
The Harris-Emhoff family is symbolic of a nation more intertwined across races and religions — Emhoff, who is Jewish, attends Easter services with Harris, and she accompanies him to the synagogue on High Holy Days — than many want to admit. That tracks with the Democratic Party’s vision of a nation big enough for all, not despite the ways we are different but in celebration of those differences.
Republicans have noticed Emhoff’s appeal and are trying to skewer him. When a British tabloid reported on an affair Emhoff had during his first marriage, he acknowledged his “actions” and said his family had “come out stronger on the other side.” During a right-wing radio interview, Donald Trump said “yes” when the show’s host called Emhoff “a crappy Jew, a horrible Jew,” presumably because he’s married to a Democrat.
So far nothing Republicans have thrown at Emhoff has stuck. Perhaps people are more focused on his devotion to the wife he calls “a joyful warrior.” But, he added, “here is the thing about joyful warriors, they are still warriors. Kamala is as tough as it comes. Just ask the criminals, global gangsters, and witnesses before the Senate Judiciary Committee.”
There’s a toughness to Emhoff, too. Perhaps his most revealing moment at the DNC was the least noticed — his choice of music as he took the stage: “You Get What You Give,” by New Radicals, a 1998 song that was an MTV staple.
Even the band’s name seemed a retort to Trump, who has tried to cast Harris as too radical to lead this nation. But what might have appealed to Emhoff are the lyrics about exposing false idols and holding onto your dreams:
Don’t let go, you’ve got the music in you
One dance left, this world is gonna pull through
Don’t give up, you’ve got a reason to live
Can’t forget, we only get what we give.
What Emhoff gives is not only a fuller portrait of his wife but a welcome snapshot of a mutually supportive and loving partnership that this nation would be lucky to have embodied in its first couple.
Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com.