When will Kamala Harris give her concession speech? – NBC4 Washington

Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to address the nation on Wednesday to officially concede the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump.

Harris is expected to address the country and her supporters at Howard University in Washington DC, her alma mater, a campaign co-chair confirmed to NBC News. The timing of Harris' speech was not immediately known.

“We still have to count votes. We still have states that haven't been called yet. We will continue overnight and try to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken,” said Cedric Richmond, campaign co-chair. “So you won’t hear from the vice president tonight. But you will hear from her tomorrow because tomorrow she will come back here to speak not only to the HU family, not only to her supporters, but also to the nation.”

The school served as her headquarters on election night, where Harris had hoped to give a victory speech Tuesday night. But as midnight approached on the East Coast and the election results showed victories for Donald Trump, the cheers in the crowd died down and the Harris campaign turned off its scheduled CNN broadcasts. Instead, the DJ blasted music from speakers to get the audience in the mood.

Harris's surest path to 270 electoral votes was through Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states that Trump won in 2016 and President Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020. But in state after state, including North Carolina and Georgia, Trump exceeded what he achieved in 2020. While Harris did not do as well as Biden did when he won the presidency four years ago.

Trump's victory over Harris, the first woman of color to lead a major party, marks the second time he has defeated a rival in a general election.

Harris rose to the top of the list after Biden dropped out of the race with less than 100 days until Election Day after a disastrous debate with the Republican nominee raised questions about his age and abilities. Despite an initial burst of energy and excitement surrounding her campaign, she struggled in a tight time frame to convince disaffected voters that she represented a break with an unpopular government.

Harris particularly focused on reproductive rights, an issue that attracted women to her candidacy after the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade repealed and states began imposing restrictions on abortion. And while abortion rights measures won in seven states, it wasn't enough to hand Harris the victory.

Trump, meanwhile, tried to woo male voters with a hypermasculine approach. At the ballot box, Trump beat Harris among men, while about half of women supported Harris.

Harris and Trump ran very different campaigns, with Harris promising to work with people who disagreed with her while Trump warned of “the enemy within.” In addition to abortion rights, she emphasized preserving democratic norms and addressing housing costs and other fundamental economic problems.

Harris refused to engage with Trump when he asked, for example, whether she had downplayed her identity as a black woman. Harris' mother came to the United States from India, while her father is from Jamaica.

Trump called Harris a socialist despite her more centrist record and insulted her intelligence and qualifications. Harris served as district attorney of San Francisco and attorney general of California before becoming a U.S. senator. Biden named her his vice presidential running mate after she ended her own presidential campaign in 2020.

But as part of the Biden administration, Harris struggled with other issues — the war in Gaza was the main one — that angered many traditional Democratic voters.

In contrast, Trump presented a bleak vision of America that fact-checkers found to be full of exaggerations and inaccuracies. He called migrants “vermin” and accused them of committing violent crimes, made wild accusations about schools supporting transgender transitions without their parents' consent, and repeated his false claims that he, not Biden, won the 2020 presidential election have. Towards the end of the campaign, a comedian insulted Puerto Ricans at his Madison Square Garden rally with the punchline “floating trash island.”

Trump was found guilty of illegally influencing the 2016 election by making hush payments to a porn actress. He faces federal charges and state charges in Georgia over his efforts to remain in the White House after the 2020 election.