When President Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race and propelled Vice President Kamala Harris into a political whirlwind, her husband was one of the last to find out.
Doug Emhoff, in fact, was closer to the last.
At home in California, Emhoff had attended a Sunday morning SoulCycle class in West Hollywood and left his cell phone in the car while going for coffee and a chat with friends in a park.
When Biden’s statement was posted, Emhoff ultimately saw it on a borrowed phone, but he wasn’t sure it was authentic at first and skipped to the end — initially missing the key part. When he finally retrieved his phone, it was “self-immolating with the amount of messages and calls,” Emhoff said in an interview with The Associated Press.
And after he reached Harris, “First, it was kinda like, ‘Where the … were you?” Emhoff laughed, before recalling that he told his wife, “‘I love you, I’m proud of you, I’m here for you, I kinda know what to do.”
‘We haven’t had time for the history’
Emhoff has demonstrated a flair for defining the role of the nation’s first second gentleman over the past three-plus years. He would become the country’s first-ever first gentleman if his wife, the likely Democratic nominee, wins in November.
In White House shorthand, Emhoff would elevate from SGOTUS — second gentleman of the United States — to FGOTUS.
He’s already used to traveling the country championing his wife and the Biden administration’s accomplishments. With her now pursuing the nomination, those efforts have quickly gone into overdrive.
“It happened so suddenly, the change,” Emhoff said, “we haven’t had time to really reflect on the history.”
Emhoff, 59, has visited 37 states and 14 countries as second gentlemen. He’s already been to four states just since Biden bowed out, and he’ll be in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine from Monday to Wednesday.
“I’ve picked up a lot more events,” Emhoff said, “and events are getting bigger.”
He’s leading a delegation to the Paris Olympics closing ceremonies and will headline a fundraiser there, taking first lady Jill Biden’s place. The second gentleman is also filling in for Jill Biden, who is scaling back travel with her husband out of the race, at the upcoming fundraiser on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts featuring former late-night host David Letterman.
Spreading Harris’ campaign message
The vice president has built her early campaign around the theme of freedom, and Emhoff was one of the nascent campaign’s first surrogates to trumpet that message last week when he visited an abortion clinic in the Washington suburbs — an event planned before Biden’s announcement.
There, Emhoff decried an environment “where freedoms are taken away. Where autonomy is taken away. Where they’re telling you that you can’t read this book. They’re telling you that you can’t learn these facts. They’re telling you that you can’t vote.”
In the interview, Emhoff said of his wife, “I have my own way of communicating things and my own way of trying to authentically talk about her and her positions.”
He’s also no stranger to Harris running for president, having campaigned for her when she ran unsuccessfully in 2020.
“He’s like a Swiss Army knife of whatever is necessary,” said Deidre DeJear, who was Iowa chair for Harris’ last campaign. “If he needed to hold something for her, he would hold something. He’ll motivate the team, too. He’ll come and put some fire under you, and use his dad voice if he has to.”
DeJear recalled how Harris and Emhoff moved to her state for months in late 2019, and even had Thanksgiving dinner in Des Moines. When Harris was describing how she would make collards and joked that “bacon is a spice,” Emhoff retorted that she had come up with an apt way to expand the campaign’s “for the people” mantra.
“That could be our new campaign slogan: ‘For the people. Bacon is a spice,'” he said then.
Today, though, Emhoff said he doesn’t see many parallels between that first presidential primary bid and taking on Republican Donald Trump in November.
“She’s been vice president for almost four years, she’s been in the Oval Office, the Situation Room, she’s been on the world stage,” the second gentlemen said of Harris. “This is a Kamala Harris who is ready to lead us.”
‘Going to live openly as a Jew’
Emhoff is the first Jewish person to serve as the spouse of a nationally elected U.S. leader. He affixed mezuzahs on the doorposts of the vice president’s residence, helped compile the first national strategy to combat antisemitism and has led White House Passover celebrations.
The second gentleman also attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the memorial at the Tree of Life campus in Pittsburgh, where 11 worshipers were killed by a gunman driven by hatred of Jews.
“I’m also going to live openly and proudly as a Jew and that will never change,” Emhoff said. “I’m going to fight antisemitism and that’s never going to change.”
Trump, while addressing a Turning Point USA gathering in Florida on Friday night, claimed that Harris “doesn’t like Jewish people.”
Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza has divided many in the United States who might otherwise be more enthusiastic about voting Democratic this fall and led to pro-Palestinian demonstrations over Biden’s strong backing of Israel.
Harris is aligned with Biden’s policies but is trying to bridge the divide within the party by emphasizing Israel’s right to defend itself while also focusing on alleviating Palestinian suffering.
The second gentlemen’s adult daughter, Ella, drew criticism from some corners when she briefly posted on a personal social media account a fundraising link to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. Israel has moved to ban the group, suggesting it supports terrorists, a charge that European leaders says is baseless.
Emhoff was born in Brooklyn, raised in New Jersey, graduated from California State University, Northridge, and attended law school at the University of Southern California. He gave up a lucrative position as an entertainment and intellectual property lawyer to avoid conflicts of interest once Harris became vice president, but served as a visiting law professor at Georgetown University after moving to Washington.
Emhoff and Harris met on a blind date in 2013 and married the following year. It was her first marriage and his second. Harris’ stepchildren — Ella and her brother Cole Emhoff — are named for Ella Fitzgerald and John Coltrane. They were teenagers when their father remarried.
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance once criticized Harris and other Democratic leaders as a “bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable,” a quote that has resurfaced in the heat of the 2024 campaign. At an appearance for his wife in Wisconsin on Saturday, Emhoff did not mention Vance by name, but noted that Harris officiated at Cole’s wedding and flew cross-country through the night to make it to Ella’s graduation.
“From Day 1, she’s been present, nurturing and fiercely protective of them,” Emhoff said.
After he finally spoke with his wife on the Sunday when Biden bowed out of the race, Emhoff flew to Wilmington, Delaware, early the next morning and met her at what had been Biden’s campaign headquarters, helping to rally the staff of what was suddenly the Harris campaign.
“I got to see her for a minute or two and gave her a big hug,” Emhoff said. “And they said, ‘Well, sir, you need to jump out on that stage.'”
