Kamala Harris Still Doesn’t Have the Answers

Yvonne Cardenas, from Cedar Grove, New Jersey, said that Harris had inspired her to “model what the other side of the aisle is really like” for others in her community, which she said leaned conservative. “I still haven’t watched her concession speech because I just don’t have it in me,” she admitted.

But Cardenas’s young daughter Leora was inspired by Harris’s strength after the election. “Even after she lost she was still, like, being strong, and telling everyone not to give up hope,” she said. Leora said she hoped Harris would run again. “Even if she wasn’t in the government then she would still bring so much power, and presence, and new ideas that this country really needs,” she said.

Another attendee, Jolie Carmichael, who’d immigrated to the United States from Poland more than two decades ago, said that Harris had given her the strength to get through a difficult divorce. “She was put in a horrible position. She didn’t have enough time,” said Carmichael, hoping Harris would consider running again.