WASHINGTON — When the president Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and was promoted to vice president Kamala Harris Her husband was not the first to discover that she had fallen into a political rut.
Doug Emhoffwas in fact closer to the latter.
Back home in California, Emhoff had attended a SoulCycle class in West Hollywood on Sunday morning and left his cell phone in the car while he went to a park for coffee and catching up with friends.
When Biden’s statement was posted, Emhoff eventually saw it on a borrowed phone, but he wasn’t sure at first whether it was authentic and jumped to the end — initially missing the key part. When he finally got his phone back, it was “self-destructing with the amount of messages and calls,” Emhoff said in an interview with The Associated Press.
And when he reached Harris, “the first thing I wondered was, ‘Where were you?'” Emhoff laughed, before recalling telling his wife, “‘I love you, I’m proud of you, I’m here for you, I kind of know what to do.'”
Emhoff has a knack for defining the role of the the first second lord of the country in the past three years. He would become the nation’s first first gentlemen if his wife, the likely Democratic nominee, wins in November.
In White House shorthand, Emhoff would be promoted from SGOTUS (second gentleman of the United States) to FGOTUS.
He is already accustomed to traveling the country to promote his wife and the Biden administration’s accomplishments, but now that she is seeking the nomination, those efforts have quickly shifted into high gear.
“The change happened so suddenly,” Emhoff said, “that we didn’t have time to really think about the history.”
Emhoff, 59, has visited 37 states and 14 countries as a second gentleman. He has been to four states since Biden withdrewand he will be in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine Monday through Wednesday.
“I’ve taken on a lot more events,” Emhoff said, “and the events are getting bigger and bigger.”
He leads a delegation to the Olympic Games in Paris closing ceremony and will lead a fundraising event there, with the first lady Jill Biden ‘s place. The second gentleman also replaces Jill Biden, who is scaling back her travels with her husband out of the race, at the upcoming fundraising on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts with former host David Letterman.
The vice president built her first campaign on the theme of freedom, and Emhoff was one of the first surrogates on the fledgling campaign to carry that message when he visited an abortion clinic in the Washington suburbs last week — an event planned before Biden’s announcement.
There Emhoff criticized an environment “where freedoms are taken away. Where autonomy is taken away. Where they tell you that you are not allowed to read this book. They tell you that you are not allowed to learn these facts. They tell you that you are not allowed to vote.”
In the interview, Emhoff said of his wife, “I have my own way of communicating things and my own way of talking authentically about her and her points of view.”
He’s also no stranger to Harris’ presidential bid, having campaigned for her during her unsuccessful 2020 campaign.
“He’s like a Swiss Army knife for whatever it takes,” said Deidre DeJear, who was the Iowa chairwoman for Harris’ last campaign. “If he had to hold something for her, he held something. He’ll motivate the team, too. He’ll come in and light a 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, even having Thanksgiving dinner in Des Moines. When Harris described how she would make kale and joked that “bacon is a condiment,” Emhoff responded that she had come up with a fitting way to expand on 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, however, Emhoff says he doesn’t see many similarities between that first primary and the fight against the Republicans. Donald Trump in november.
“She’s been vice president for almost four years, she’s been in the Oval Office, she’s been in the Situation Room, she’s been on the world stage,” the second gentleman said of Harris. “This is a Kamala Harris who is ready to lead us.”
Emhoff is the first jewish person to serve as the spouse of a nationally elected American leader. He affixed mezuzahs to the doorposts of the vice president’s residence, helped draft the first national strategy to combat anti-Semitism, and led White House Passover celebrations.
The second gentleman was also present at the laying of the cornerstone for the monument on the campus of Tree of Life in Pittsburgh, where 11 believers 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 anti-Semitism and that will never change.”
Trump claimed Friday night during a speech at a Turning Point USA rally in Florida that Harris “doesn’t like Jewish people.”
Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza has divided many in the United States who might otherwise have been more enthusiastic about voting Democratic this fall. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations have also emerged over Biden’s strong support for Israel.
Harris agrees with Biden’s policies, but is trying to bridge the gap within the party by emphasizing Israel’s right to defend itself while simultaneously emphasizing the need to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinians.
The second gentleman’s adult daughter, Ella, drew criticism from some quarters when she briefly posted a link on a personal social media account for a fundraiser to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees. Israel has banned the group, suggesting it supports terrorists, an accusation European leaders say is unfounded.
Emhoff was born in Brooklyn, grew up in New Jersey, graduated from California State University, Northridge, and went on to law school at the University of Southern California. He left a lucrative job as an entertainment and intellectual property lawyer to avoid conflicts of interest when Harris became vice president, but served as a visiting professor of law 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 after Ella Fitzgerald and John Coltrane. They were teenagers when their father remarried.
Republican candidate for vice president JD Vance once criticized Harris and other Democratic leaders as a “group of childless cat ladies who are unhappy,” a quote that has resurfaced in the heat of the 2024 campaign. During an appearance for his wife in Wisconsin on Saturday, Emhoff did not mention Vance by name but noted that Harris had officiated at Cole’s wedding and had flown across the country overnight to be at Ella’s graduation.
“From day one she has been there, caring and fiercely protective of them,” said Emhoff.
After finally speaking to his wife on the Sunday Biden withdrew from the race, Emhoff flew early the next morning to Wilmington, Delaware, where he met her at Biden’s former campaign headquarters and helped her mobilize the staff of what had suddenly become Harris’ campaign.
“I saw her for a minute or two and gave her a big hug,” Emhoff said. “And they said, ‘Well, sir, you’ve got to jump up on that stage.'”
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Associated Press reporters Amanda Seitz in McLean, Virginia, and Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.