--- title: What a Woman President Would Mean description: With Kamala Harris is on the cusp of history, Democrats are gripped by terrifying optimism canonical: https://time.com/7171850/kamala-harris-first-woman-president/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-11-05T12:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-01-19T15:05:55.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: What a Woman President Would Mean og:description: With Kamala Harris is on the cusp of history, Democrats are gripped by terrifying optimism og:url: https://time.com/7171850/kamala-harris-first-woman-president/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta7fe0a9176d2d047/698a9bd8cabb1d6ee4e5b3ec/kamala-harris-04.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: 2024 ELECTION DC - WEEKEND og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What a Woman President Would Mean twitter:description: With Kamala Harris is on the cusp of history, Democrats are gripped by terrifying optimism twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta7fe0a9176d2d047/698a9bd8cabb1d6ee4e5b3ec/kamala-harris-04.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What a Woman President Would Mean > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=6a6633b1-f68e-4abd-9414-e8e0085c1d59&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Kamala Harris Says Momentum is on Her Side During Rally in Pittsburgh on the Eve of the Election [Watch (HLS stream): Kamala Harris Says Momentum is on Her Side During Rally in Pittsburgh on the Eve of the Election](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/2VwyyOX4.m3u8) (2:28)  _Published 2024-11-05. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris held a campaign rally the night before the elections in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania._  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Updated: Jan 19, 2026 3:05 PM UTCPublished: Nov 5, 2024 12:00 PM UTC  Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaks at a rally in Harrisburg, Pa., on Oct. 30, 2024. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaks at a rally in Harrisburg, Pa., on Oct. 30, 2024. Andrew Harnik—Getty Images  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Updated: Jan 19, 2026 3:05 PM UTCPublished: Nov 5, 2024 12:00 PM UTC _For live updates on the 2024 election,_ [_read TIME's coverage here_](https://time.com/7171938/2024-election-results/)_._ My grandmother used to live in an all-brown house in upstate New York. The living room was brown, the bathroom was brown, the bedroom was brown. It was brown because my grandfather decided things, and brown paint was on sale. My grandmother remembers wearing gloves to go to the bank to write a check in the 1950s, and being asked if she was married before she could access the account. Even though the money in the bank account was hers. Now she is 90, her home is various shades of lime green and tangerine, and she writes plenty of checks. But when I called her recently to ask if she ever thought she would see a woman President in her lifetime, she paused before answering: "No." My grandma was born roughly 10 years after women got the right to vote. Her lifetime has spanned the popularization of the washing machine, the invention of the [birth-control pill](https://time.com/6962771/is-hormonal-birth-control-safe-health-risks/), the sexual revolution, and women's entrance into the workforce. Now, she may live long enough to see a woman be elected President of the United States. As Election Day 2024 dawns, [Kamala Harris](https://time.com/7009317/reintroduction-of-kamala-harris/) is on the cusp of history. Polls show the race between the Vice President and [Donald Trump](https://time.com/6972021/donald-trump-2024-election-interview/) is more or less a dead heat across the seven key battleground states. Either candidate could win. But in the final hours of the race, Harris' campaign has come to believe she has the advantage. **Read More:** [_What Kind of President Would Kamala Harris Be?_ ](https://time.com/7081350/kamala-harris-presidential-platform-policies/) For Democrats, and especially those who tried and failed to elect [Hillary Clinton](https://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2016-hillary-clinton-runner-up/) the first woman President in 2016, it is a moment of terrifying optimism, with Harris' supporters vacillating between exuberant hope and abject fear, depending on the time of day and the disposition of the latest poll. In these final hours, most of the women I spoke with had settled into a kind of emotional defensive crouch: they hoped, but they were afraid to hope. "This makes me want to vomit," says one person who has worked for years to elect Democratic women to office. "I'm gonna cry again, huh?" says another who worked on Clinton's 2016 campaign. One of the central ironies of Harris's brief campaign is that she almost never mentions that she would be the first woman ever elected President of the United States. It is so far outside her campaign's messaging and strategy that it can sometimes seem as if she wants to avoid emphasizing her gender altogether. Breaking what Clinton once called that "highest, hardest glass ceiling" seems to be the last thing the Harris campaign wants to talk about. "I think a lot about Election Night in 2016, and the overarching feeling of being like: Oh, little girls will see that they never get to be president," says Amanda Litman, who worked on the Clinton campaign before launching Run for Something, which helps elect young people to office. "And little boys will see that they get to act like him and still be president." **Read More:** [_Why Some Democrats Believe This May Be An Abortion Election After All._ ](https://time.com/7098669/harris-campaign-abortion-women/) Litman recalls thinking after 2016 that Democrats would never elect a woman President, or at least not anytime soon. "If Hillary Clinton couldn't win—the most accomplished, qualified candidate for President, basically ever—in what world would we get another chance?" she says. "Because people were going to blame her loss on her gender, and they did." But a lot has changed since 2016\. Clinton's loss—and [Trump's win](https://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2016-donald-trump/)—ushered in a new era for American women. They marched in the streets and formed resistance groups. They helped elect a [record number of women ](https://time.com/5361122/women-congress-2018-elections-record/)to Congress in 2018\. They forced a social reckoning about sex and power with the [#MeToo movement](https://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2017-silence-breakers/). They made billion-dollar movies and launched pop tours that sustained small economies. They lost their abortion rights with the[_Dobbs_ decision](https://time.com/6189476/abortion-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/), then organized a show of force that has helped Democrats have over-perform in elections ever since. Harris is on the brink of history in large part because legions of women have lifted her there. "Electing a woman means even more now than in 2016," says Jenna Lowenstein, who was Clinton's digital director on that campaign. "There's more on the line post-_Dobbs_, and the reality of a Trump presidency is a vivid memory." For the Democratic women who have spent their lives trying to get other women elected to office, Harris' win would be the final vindication of what once seemed like an improbable goal. It's not just that Harris is a woman, they say. It's that she has elevated issues like reproductive freedom, the care economy, and maternal mortality, making them central to her economic vision. "It's not an accident that we have a woman leading on that," says EMILYs List spokeswoman Christina Reynolds, who notes that Harris focused on maternal mortality as a Senator and on abortion rights as Vice President. "She has always been someone who viewed these things that are seen as 'women's issues' as broad economic issues that impact our entire way of life." Whatever happens, the fact that Harris is so close to the presidency means something has changed in America already. "The door has opened," my grandma says, talking to me from her home in suburban Illinois, where she sat on her polka-dotted couch, in her bubblegum-pink living room, surrounded by folk paintings by women artists. "And it’s never gonna close again. Never." ## Transcript We're Pittsburgh. Are we ready to do this? Are we ready to vote? Are we ready to win? Alright, So Pittsburgh. This is it. Tomorrow is election day. Tomorrow is Election Day. And the momentum is on our side. But we still got some work to do, 'cause, look, the race is not over, and we must finish strong. So, listen. Here's the thing about the hard work. We like hard work. Hard work is good work. Hard work is joyful work. And make no mistake. We will win. We will win. We will win. So America, I am asking for your vote. I am asking for your vote. So, Pittsburgh, listen. We got one day left to get this done. So now we work to get out the vote. Let's reach out in these next 24 hours to family and friends and classmates and neighbors and co workers. And as we do that, let us really be true to what our campaign has been about from the very start. And on that, I say, please, let us be intentional about building community. Let us be intentional about building coalitions. And let us remind everyone your vote is your voice, and your voice is your power. On last time, Pittsburgh, I ask you. Are you ready to make your voices heard? Do we believe in freedom? Do we believe in opportunity? Do we believe in the promise of America? And are we ready to fight for it. And when we fight, We win. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America. 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