Vice President Kamala Harris said in an interview with NBC News’ Hallie Jackson on Tuesday that she is not concerned about sexism impacting next month’s election and that she thinks the country is ready for a woman of color in the White House.
“Come to my events and you will see there are men and women,” Harris said at her official residence in the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. “The experience that I am having is one in which it is clear that regardless of someone’s gender, they want to know that their president has a plan to lower costs, that their president has a plan to secure America in the context of our position around the world.”
“Eery walk of life of our country,” she continued, “I think part of what is important in this election is really not only turning the page, but closing the page and the chapter on an era that suggests that Americans are divided.”
Harris would be the first woman president in American history if elected and only the second non-white one. But 16 years after Barack Obama was elected to be the first Black president and eight years after Hillary Clinton lost her shot to break the “highest hardest glass ceiling,” Harris said she’s not concerned about sexism stopping her.
“I don’t think of it that way,” she said of sexism. “My challenge is the challenge of making sure I can talk with and listen to as many voters as possible and earn their vote. And I will never assume that anyone in our country should elect a leader based on their gender or their race, instead that that leader needs to earn the vote based on substance and what they will do to address challenges and to inspire people.”
Harris has not been dwelling much on the history-making potential of her candidacy but dismissed a question about why.
“Well, I’m clearly a woman,” Harris said. “The point that most people really care about is, can you do the job and do you have a plan to actually focus on them?”
With just two weeks to go before the November election, Harris and Republican Former President Donald Trump are locked in a dead heat, with polls showing a neck-and-neck race both nationally and in the seven key battleground states.
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