Vice President Kamala Harris tried to assuage disappointment and offer words of encouragement to hundreds of supporters as she conceded the presidential election on Wednesday, while some of her supporters wiped tears from their eyes during her speech.

“The result of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for, but hear me when I say… “The light of America's promise will always burn bright.” Harris said in his remarks at her alma mater, Howard University.

Harris consoled Democrats over the loss to former President Donald Trump, acknowledging that they are “feeling and experiencing a range of emotions right now.”

However, she stressed that Democrats must accept the election results to preserve democracy. When Harris conceded the race on Wednesday, he did something Trump never did.

“Today I spoke with President-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory. I also told him that we will help him and his team in their transition and that we will commit to a peaceful transfer of power,” she said. earned cheers from the crowd.

Harris' concession capped a turbulent and difficult election campaign. Just 15 weeks before Election Day, she abruptly replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic candidate list. Her rival narrowly escaped the bullet of a suspected assassin, and a second apparent assassination attempt followed nine weeks later. And she survived months of razor-thin election results that embarrassed the nation.

Her loss marked a realignment in the Democratic coalition, with Trump and Republicans expanding their influence to new segments of the electorate, including Latinos. This is despite Trump pushing the chaotic, divisive MAGA politics that have defined the Republican Party since his emergence as a political force in the 2016 election.

Ultimately, Harris was dealing with serious economic concerns and voters who wanted change, and she couldn't escape the darker tactics of Trump's movement, which tried to portray her as unstable, a traitor and a danger with a barrage of lies and racial slanders for society to represent and misinformation. Trump himself has been prone to violent rhetoric, referencing a gunman who fired at reporters covering his rallies or the idea of ​​pointing guns at a former Republican lawmaker turned critic of being sent to war would.

Harris, 60, sought to thwart those attacks with a message that combined joy and determination – urging the audience to “lift people up” while embracing her career as a tough prosecutor – and a stark warning: that the 78th -year-old Trump would rule the country as a prosecutor in an authoritarian way.

But voters responded with a decisive victory for Trump, amid an economy still recovering from Covid and inflation and dissatisfaction with the country's trajectory.

The former U.S. senator and attorney general from California, who paved the way as the first female vice president, galvanized her party by entering the presidential race. Democrats were distraught as Biden went from ineffective to severely damaged after his lone debate against Trump.

After Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris, Democrats rejoiced in the change, flooding fundraising channels and breaking fundraising records. Harris cultivated a forward-looking identity, trying to distance herself from the unpopular president she still worked with and from policies that failed to persuade Americans.

Ultimately, however, she may not have withdrawn sufficiently.

Harris had expressed policy ambitions that included restoring women's access to abortion and promised a “care economy” that supports first-time homebuyers, parents of young children and older Americans. She addressed one of the Biden administration's biggest vulnerabilities with voters and vowed to take strong action on illegal immigration. She promised more resources for border control while promising to ease the legal quagmire for asylum seekers and improve pathways to citizenship.

Reproductive rights were at the heart of their argument. Harris repeatedly tried to tap into the anger and energy behind Trump that brought about the demise of Roe v. Wade had pushed forward. In rallies, interviews and advertising, she laid out to the former president the most restrictive state laws in America, calling them “Trump abortion bans.” A lasting image of her only debate with Trump – in which she appeared as a more forceful and disciplined candidate – emerged when she described a woman suffering from a miscarriage and not receiving care in the emergency room as “bleeding to death in a parking lot.”

What Harris didn't emphasize was the historic nature of her candidacy, unlike Hillary Clinton's campaign against Trump in 2016. But the vice president was well aware of what her election would mean. In an Oct. 22 interview with NBC News, Harris said the country is “absolutely” ready for a woman as president and is eager to overcome the era of division.

“I see this in every walk of life in our country,” Harris said at the time. “Part of what's important in this election is not just turning the page, but closing the page and closing the chapter on an era that suggests Americans are divided.”

But many deep in the MAGA movement saw her as a threat, and Harris failed to overcome the deep divisions and polarization that have characterized the US election.

Just a week before the election, as Harris stood in front of an estimated 45,000 supporters at the Ellipse in Washington, with the White House in the background, Harris clearly recalled the site where Trump spoke on January 6, 2021, which preceded a violent attack Mass of his supporters at the US Capitol.

“America, for too long we have been filled with too much division, chaos and mutual distrust, and then it can be easy to forget one simple truth: It doesn't have to be this way. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” Harris said in her closing argument on that crisp fall evening. “It’s time to stop pointing fingers. We need to stop pointing fingers and instead start closing our arms. It's time to leave the drama and the conflict, the fear and the division behind. It is time for a new generation of leadership in America, and I stand ready to offer that leadership as the next President of the United States of America.”

An accelerated campaign

Harris arrived at this point after a series of extraordinary events.

The crisis point for Democrats was Biden's performance at the debate with Trump on June 27. It was Biden who called on Trump to debate him early. Democrats raised expectations that the president would finally address questions about his cognitive health.

It backfired spectacularly. Biden struggled to speak clearly, stared blankly into the distance and was at times incoherent – at one point declaring that Democrats had “finally defeated Medicare.”

While Democrats were in turmoil, Republicans unified after Trump was hit by a bullet at an outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. While visibly bleeding and surrounded by Secret Service, Trump pumped his fist in the air and shouted, “Fight!” Battle! Fight!” An instantly iconic image emerges.

Republican base energy soared and Democrats worried that the election was all but lost.

The Biden campaign faltered, triggering an outbreak of panic within the party. One by one, members of Congress called on Biden to resign until a critical mass was reached, with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, working behind the scenes to urge his resignation. Campaign insiders doubted there was a path forward as fundraising dried up, severely hampering the necessary expansion required in the final stages of a presidential campaign.

Biden announced his withdrawal from the race on July 21 and thus supported Harris.

In less than a month, a revamped Democratic National Convention was taking place in Chicago, with a boisterous party celebrating a black woman who showed promise in her victory over Trump. It was a remarkable resurgence since Harris' first attempt at the presidency, when she abandoned her bid for the Democratic nomination ahead of the 2019 Iowa caucuses.

Harris' participation changed the dynamics of the race – literally overnight – and expanded the competitive map for Democrats beyond the blue wall states, driving enthusiasm and attracting scores of volunteers and new voter registrations. These efforts were fueled by a record pace of fundraising, ultimately totaling over $1.4 billion.

Suddenly the sleepy events surrounding Biden were over, and with Harris, the campaign booked large venues for mass rallies that immediately drew crowds of at least 10,000 people in each of the swing states. Harris also brought star power with her, with celebrities like Oprah, Bruce Springsteen, John Legend and others lending their influential voices to support her in some way.

Trump struggled to adjust to his new opponent, became publicly uneasy about her entry and made a series of missteps that hurt him with certain voters. He questioned Harris' race and hurled gender-based attacks at her, fought her in his only debate and plunged into debunked conspiracy theories that culminated in his declaration that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating family pets.

Notably, Harris sharply refuted Trump's insistence in the debate that he won the 2020 election.

“Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people,” Harris said. “It’s obviously very difficult for him to process this.”

But Trump managed to appeal to working-class voters across all racial and ethnic groups while keeping strong numbers among men down.