Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff.
New York:
With Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ historic election victory, her husband Douglas Emhoff also marked history, as he will be the first ‘second gentleman’, the first spouse of a Vice President in the US when he is sworn in in January.
The wife of a President of the United States is called the First Lady, while that of the Vice President is the Second Lady. Never before in its history has the United States had a female president and vice president, so it remains to be seen what formal title – ‘Second Knight, Second Husband’ – will be given to the first male spouse of an elected leader.
So while Harris’s choice as the next vice president of the United States is groundbreaking, bringing to the office a litany of firsts: she will be the first woman, the first black woman, the first woman of Indian descent, and the first daughter of immigrants. In being sworn in as vice president, your husband will also make history in his own way.
Harris is married to Emhoff, 56, a successful entertainment attorney, who has been a strong and supportive presence for Harris during the election campaign.
“I’m so proud of you,” Emhoff tweeted on Saturday, with a photo of him and Harris hugging as the television networks announced the presidential race for Biden and Harris.
A report on CNN said Emhoff has been far from the limelight, often seen backstage or on the edge of the crowd at Harris events, sporting a “Kamala” t-shirt.
Emhoff came to attention last year when he rushed to the stage to protect Harris after a protester got close enough to the senator to grab her microphone, CNN said.
He has also staunchly defended Harris when Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, retweeted a racist lie that Harris is not African American because his parents immigrated from Jamaica and India.
Harris often talks about how she and Emhoff met after Harris’s best friend set them up on a blind date in 2013 when she was California attorney general. Emhoff has two children, Cole and Ella, from a previous marriage.
Emhoff proposed to Harris in 2014, and the two were married in the Santa Barbara courthouse that same year in a ceremony officiated by Harris’s sister Maya.
“We met, we fell madly in love (we still are), we got married and we continue to live very happily ever after,” he tweeted early last year.
“I love my husband. He’s funny, kind, patient, he loves my cooking. He’s a great guy,” Harris told NowThis in an interview last year.
During the election campaign, Harris has repeatedly said that he loves being “Momala” to his stepchildren, who came up with the term because they preferred it to “stepmother.”
“To my brother and me, you will always be ” Momala, ” the greatest stepmother in the world,” Ella said in a video featuring Harris at the Democratic National Convention. “You are a rock, not only for our father, but for the three generations of our great family.”
“My family is everything to me. And I have had many titles throughout my career, and certainly, ” Vice President ” will be great, but ” Momala ” will always be the one that means the most, Harris said in his first speech after Biden chose her to run with him for the White House.
USA Today said in a report that Emhoff has handled high-profile cases involving production companies, a former NFL athlete and a sports nutrition company, among others.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, he moved with his family to Southern California from New Jersey as a teenager. He graduated from California State University Northridge in 1987 and went on to USC Gould School of Law, where he obtained his law degree in 1990.
The USA Today report added that during an ‘Lawyers for Biden’ event, Emhoff had said that he would focus on “access to justice” as an issue as long as he is a second gentleman.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
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