A view of empty chairs after it was announced that US Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris will not appear at Howard University, in Washington, US on November 6, 2024.
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Republican nominee and former US President Donald Trump claimed victory while Vice-President Kamala Harris was unable to gain any of the swing states. The Democrat, having already created history in the last election as America's first-ever female Vice-President, would have done so again across spectrums as the first woman, Black woman and South Asian American to win the presidency, but it was not to be.
After Biden, 81, withdrew from the presidential race in July amid concerns about his age, Harris had sought to turn the tables on Trump, pointing to his rambling rallies as evidence that he is unfit. Her campaign's embrace of viral memes and a parade of celebrity endorsements gained her traction with young voters seen as a critical voting bloc.
At the time of writing, Harris led the following states:
Colorado (10), Connecticut (7), D.C. (3), Delaware (3), Illinois (19), Massachusets (11), Maryland (10), New Jersey (14), New York (28), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Oregon (8), Washington (12), California (54), Hawaii (4), Maine (1), Nebraska (1), New Hampshire (4), New Mexico (5), Virginia (13).
Who is Kamala Harris?
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Kamala Harris was born in Oakland, California to an Indian mother and an Afro-Jamaican father. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was a biologist who came to the United States from India in 1958 to enroll in graduate school in endocrinology at the University of California whereas her father, Donald J Harris came to the US in 1961, also enrolling in UC Berkeley and specialised in development economics. They met in 1962 and married a year later. Harris was born in 1964.
Harris' India connection
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Thulasendrapuram in Tamil Nadu is the ancestral village of Kamala’s maternal grandfather P V Gopalan, who was in British government civil service. Her mother Shyamala was Gopalan’s daughter. Kamala’s maternal grandfather Gopalan was born in this village before moving to Chennai.
The village hogged the limelight in August 2020 when Kamala was nominated as the Democrat Vice President candidate, and it celebrated her victory the same year.
A special 'abhishekam' of sandalwood and turmeric, besides a special 'archana' was performed on Tuesday at a temple in the village of the ancestors of Kamala Harris as the villagers prayed for her victory.
How Harris' campaign panned out
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The contest for the top seat had carved out a deeply polarised nation whose divisions only grew starker during a fiercely competitive race between the two candidates. In the overall campaign, Harris urged Americans to come together, while also warning that a second Trump term would threaten the very underpinnings of American democracy. She also projected the election as the one to protect the country's fundamental freedoms, safeguard constitutional values and ensure women's rights.
Harris has also tried to piece together a broader but challenging coalition of liberal Democrats, independents and disaffected moderate Republicans, describing Trump as too dangerous to elect.
For many Harris backers, her vow to protect abortion rights after the US Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 ruling that recognised a constitutional right to the procedure was the most compelling reason to vote for the Democrat Vice President.
She campaigned on protecting reproductive rights, an issue that has galvanised women since the US Supreme Court in 2022 eliminated a nationwide right to abortion.
However, despite heavy and intense campaigning to catch up after Biden's late withdrawal from the elections, Kamala was unable to sway the votes in any of the swing states across the nation, and ultimately lost the White House to Trump, who is set to begin his second term as President of the United States of America.